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ADDRESSES 

TO 

ENGINEERING STUDENTS. 



EDITED BY 

WADDELL & HARRINGTON 
CONSULTING ENGINEERS. 



SECOND EDITION, 
EIGHT THOUSAND COPIES 



PUBLISHED BY 

WADDELL & HARRINGTON, 

KANSAS CITY. MISSOURI. 

1912. 



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COPYRIGHT. 1911 

BY 

WADDELL & HARRINGTON. 



The Schooley Stationery Co. 

Printers & Lithographers 

Kansas City, Mo. 



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ICI.A314834 

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PREFACE. 

For some time the compilers of this work have been considering 
the advisability of editing and publishing the papers of which it is 
composed, although from the very start they were firmly convinced 
of both its necessity and the great amount of good that it is capable 
of accomplishing for the engineering profession. Finally, in February, 
1911, in order to settle the question, they sent a circular letter to 
some six hundred and fifty instructors in American and Canadian 
engineering schools requesting their opinions, which later proved to 
be almost unanimously favorable. This letter asked not only each 
professor's idea concerning the advisability of the publication; but 
also whether he would use the work as a text book and, if so, how 
many copies per annum would probably be required for his classes. 
While the number thus ascertained to be needed was not as great 
as might have been desired, it was large enough to warrant the 
Editors in undertaking the work. 

Just here it is pertinent to mention that the compilation has not 
by any means been undertaken as a money-making venture — far 
from it! — becauise the Editors have not only done gratis all the work 
involved in its preparation, but also have themselves paid the cost 
of typesetting and providing the plates, in order that the book 
may be sold to engineering students at the actual cost of paper, 
press-work, binding, and distribution, the latter being reduced to an 
absolute minimum by cutting out all possible profit thereon. This 
has permitted of the book being sold to students of engineering, 
when ordered in large quantities, at seventy-five cents per copy and 
to the general public in single copies at one dollar. The Editors 
were guided in this action by the following reasons: 

First. They want the book not only to be widely read but also 
to remain permanently for reference in the libraries of those who 
read it. 

Second. As the compelling of students to purchase an additional 
text book is looked upon by some persons to be in the nature of an 
imposition, it appeared advisable to minimize to the utmost the 
gravity of such imposition. 

In preparing the book the Editors have been governed by no 
sordid nor selfish motives, but solely by their desire to aid the stu- 

iii 



iv PREFACE. 

dents of engineering and young engineers to make the best of their 
opportunities for development and progress, and thus eventually to 
benefit the profession. 

The Editors v^ere led to the issuing of the book by the recog- 
nition of the follov^ang. facts : 

"First: Most students v^ho enter technical schools have no ade- 
quate idea of the standing of the engineering profession nor of its 
importance to the v^orld ; and the already excessive demands upon 
the instructor's time make it very difficult for him to impart much 
information along these lines. 

"Second: ^As a rule, mainly because of the excessively large 
classes that engineering professors have to teach, students are not 
given sufficient friendly advice concerning how to make the most 
of their course of instruction, and are not taught how to study to 
best advantage. 

"Third: For the same reason, students usually are not taught 
enough about ethical matters for their guidance both at college and 
in practical life afterwards. 

"Fourth: With a few notable exceptions, students generally 
are not instructed at all adequately in good, sound, forcible, engi- 
neering English." 

The reader will notice that many of the "Addresses" have been 
prefaced with editorial notes telling in certain cases who the writer 
is or was, and for what special purpose the address was prepared, 
besides pointing out and emphasizing a few of its most salient or 
important features. No apology is needed for this prefacing, because 
such notes should certainly prove both interesting and valuable. 

The following quotation from the Editors' before-mentioned 
circular letter will indicate their object and the methods by which 
they hope to attain it. 

"Our desire is to catch the freshmen as they enter, tell them 
what a great and important profession engineering is, inform them 
as to what they must do in order to obtain the greatest amount of 
value from their technical course, rouse their enthusiasm for study 
and work, develop in them high ideals in respect to ethics and ac- 
complishment, and encourage them effectively to use their utmost 
endeavor to make themselves a credit to both the college and the 
engineering profession. 

"Please note that the book could be used as a text book through- 
out the entire engineering course, some of the papers applying spe- 
cially to the completion thereof and to the starting of the engineer's 
life work. 



PREFACE. V 

"As the papers of which the book would be composed are written 
in excellent English, the instructors in that language could employ 
it to good advantage as a text book or book of reference. We firmly 
believe in the importance of instructing engineering students in good, 
modern, engineering English, instead of teaching them mainly from 
the ancient classical literature." 

No apology is needed for the omission of portions of certain 
papers, for the parts thus elided either were not of special interest 
to students, or dealt with matter treated fully elsewhere. 

Anyone who reads the book from cover to cover (and the Editors 
earnestly hope that there will be many of its readers who will do so) 
will undoubtedly find that some points have been discussed by more 
than one of the writers, thus involving more or less repetition; but 
this is not objectionable, because such points are generally of great 
importance, and their reiteration simply adds emphasis to the state- 
ments. An agreement of authorities on any subject will tend to con- 
vince the reader of the correctness of their opinion and to impress 
it forcibly on his mind. 

Occasionally it may be found that the authorities disagree ; and 
in such cases it will be necessary for the reader to form for himself 
his own opinion. However, on all essential matters the various writers 
will generally be found perfectly in accord. 

The numerous addresses composing this volume are arranged 
in the order in which the Editors deem they may most advantage- 
ously be read by students of engineering. If the book were used 
as a text, the first eleven addresses might pertain to the work of the 
freshman year, the next seven to that of the sophomore, the next 
seven to that of the junior, and the remainder to that of the senior. 
Such a division is merely suggestive and need not be followed. The 
earnest freshman student who desires to obtain the greatest possible 
benefit from his course of instruction and who has ambition to suc- 
ceed later in the profession and make a name and a position for him- 
self therein, will probably read the book from Preface to Finis, 
then will begin to study it anew, and will continue to review it 
during his entire course. If he does so, he cannot fail to be greatly 
and materially benefited by its perusal and study. In fact, the 
Editors feel confident that such a use of the book will often eventu- 
ally prove to be the determining factor between success and failure 
or mediocrity in the reader's professional career. 

Recapitulating, the Editors beg to express the hope, and even 
the conviction, that this compilation of addresses will result to an 



vi PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION. 

eminent degree in the following benefits to students of engineering 
and young engineers: 

A. Directing students into right lines of thought and action during 
their college course. 

B. Encouraging students toward the ethical life both before 
and after graduation. 

C. Development among students of a love for the engineering 
profession. 

D. Giving to students a true and adequate conception of the 
scope and dignity of the engineering profession. 

E. Enabling students to obtain the most profit from their tech- 
nical course. 

F. Improvement in students' and young engineers' knowledge 
and command of the English language. 

G. Enabling graduates to develop themselves rapidly, thorough- 
ly, and successfully in their professional careers. 

H. Finally, though perhaps indirectly, benefiting the engineer- 
ing profession ethically and in many other ways. 

If these results ever be accomplished, even in a minor degree, 
the Editors will feel amply repaid for all the work which they have 
done in thus resurrecting (oftentimes from oblivion) the valuable 
and interesting papers of which this volume is composed. 

J. A. L. Waddell, 
John Lyle Harrington. 
Kansas City, Mo. 

April, 1911. 



PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION. 

It has been very gratifying to the Editors of this book to learn that 
within three months of the issue of the first edition, which consisted of 
three thousand copies, the supply has been entirely exhausted, and main- 
ly by bulk orders from engineering schools. The reviews in the tech- 
nical press have been the means of effecting a small demand for single 
copies ; but as yet there has not been made any attempt to advertise the 
book among young practicing engineers, to whom its perusal would 
certainly be very beneficial — as has been pointed out with emphasis in 
several of the said reviews. 



PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION. vii 

While the response from the technical institutions as a whole has 
been quite satisfactory, it has been noticed that a number of the lead- 
ing engineering schools have merely ordered a copy or two for the 
library, and have not complied with the Editors' request to arrange 
for purchasing the book in bulk and selling it without any distributing 
profit directly to the students. 

The editors feel that, considering the facts that they have edited 
and published the work by the expenditure of much of their time, energy, 
and cash, and are trying to distribute it to students at the actual cost 
of paper, press work, binding, and freight, with the sole object of bene- 
fitting the engineering profession through its embryo members, and that 
they are asking the professors to sell the books first and remit the pro- 
ceeds afterwards, they ought to be warranted in anticipating that each 
university, college, and school where engineering of any kind is taught 
will arrange to distribute the books as suggested. If the Editors were 
millionaires, they would gladly provide a fund by means of which each 
entering freshman engineer-student throughout the entire country should 
receive a complimentary copy ; but, alas ! — no engineer can hope ever to 
attain to such wealth as would warrant a perpetual gift of that description. 

That the Editors are not chimerical in their hope and expectation 
of the ultimate good to the profession which may be attained by this 
work, is proved not only by the reviews but also by numerous letters 
from engineers and professors of engineering, as well as a few from 
engineer-students. 

The second edition contains five additional papers, incorporated in 
the following order : 

The Development of Engineering as a Profession in the United States, 
,by Dr. Charles H. Snow. 

The Story of a Lighthouse, by Dr. A. J. Du Bois. 

The Opportunities in the Electrical Business, by Dean George A. Damoa 

Formulas, Their Uses and Abuses, by Dr. Alfred Hume. 

The Elements of Effective Education, by Professor John Lane Van 
Ornum. 

Each of these papers has been introduced by an editorial which 
gives the reason for its inclusion. The Editors believe that all five are 
of special importance and that they will prove interesting to both en- 
gineering students and young engineers in practice. 



viii PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION. 

Strictly speaking, the papers of Dr. Snow and Dr. Du Bois should 
have been placed near the beginning of the book, as they should be read 
by freshmen ; but this would have involved considerable labor and ex- 
pense, thus militating against the Editors' desire to keep the selling 
price of the book down to an absolute minimum. All five of the new 
papers might have been inserted in an "Appendix" ; but as the Index 
had to be rewritten to include the new matter, it was decided to place 
the additional papers before the two closing addresses of Professor 
Karapetoff. 

In accordance with a criticism contained in the review of Engin- 
eering News and with the suggestions made in letters from a number 
of leading educators and engineers, the Editors have elaborated some- 
what their introductions to the different addresses by telling a little 
concerning the professional careers of the authors thereof. These 
biographical notes are, of necessity, rather meagre and condensed, never- 
theless it is hoped that they will prove of interest to our readers. 

The Editors had hoped to be able to reduce the bulk price of the 
second edition below seventy-five cents per copy, but this new matter 
and an unexpected increase of five cents per copy in the cost of the first 
edition, made at the last moment by the printers, have prevented. 

It is the hope of the Editors that, for a long time to come, there will 
be issued a new edition of gradually enlarging numbers each year ; but 
they feel that, with the exception of a single paper, the book has reached 
its limit in size, unless the price be increased, which, in their opinion, is 
inadvisable. That exception is an as-yet-unwritten paper on ''Engineer- 
ing Ethics," which they trust they will some day be able to incorporate 
as an ''Appendix." That a satisfactory treatment of this important sub- 
ject will sooner or later be produced they feel assured ; and when it is, 
they will certainly, if permitted, add it to this collection of addresses.- 

J. A. L. Waddell. 

John Lyle Harrington. 

Kansas City, Mo. 
February, 1912. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

The Profession of Engineer. 

By the Editors 1 

Advice to Freshmen. 

By Dean Francis C. Shenehon 5 

Two Kinds of Education for Engineers. 

. By Dean J. B. Johnson r 23 

The Durable Satisfactions of Life. 

By Dr. Charles W. Eliot - Zl 

Engineering Education. 

By Professor Frank P. McKibben 43 

The Value of English to the Technical Man. 

By John Lyle Harrington, C. E 49 

The Necessity for Individual Engineering Libraries and for Continuing 
Study After Graduation. 

By John Lyle Harrington, C. E 69 

The Educational Value of the Technical Press v^ith Special Reference 
TO Engineering News. 

By Harwood Frost, B. A. Sc. 97 

Business Training for the Engineer. 

By Dr. Alex. C. Humphreys Ill 

Records. 

By E. E. Howard, C. E - 117 

Some Educational Problems in a Large University. 

By Professor Vladimir Karapetoff 133 

Hints to Students on the Education of an Engineer. 

By Dr. Ira O. Baker 141 

ix 



\^ 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAG£ 

The Practical Engineer. 

By Onward Bates, C. E - 149 

Some Relations of the Engineer to Society. 

By Colonel H. G. Prout 159 

The College Graduate as an Engineer. 

By Dr. Alex. C. Humphreys - - 173 

The Study of Engineering. 

By Professor William H. Burr 189 

The Making of an Engineer. 

By M. J. Riggs, C. E 197 

Ambition. 

By Winder Elwell Goldsborough, M. E. 203 

The Twentieth Century Engineer. 

By Dr. Henry S. Carhart 207 

Engineering and Life. 

By Professor Frank H. Constant 219 

Limitations of Efficiency in Engineering Education. 

By Dr. George Fillmore Swain 229 

The Relations of Civil Engineering to Other Branches of Science. 

By Dr. J. A. L. Waddell - - 253 

College Training of Electrical Engineers. 

By Dr. Arthur C. Scott 27.1 

The Present Status of the Engineering Profession and How It May Be 
Improved. 

By Dr. J. A. L. Waddell 279 

The Engineer's Duty as a Citizen. 

By Rear Admiral Geo. W. Melville, U. S. N., Ret 291 

The Point of View. 

By Walter C. Kerr, M. E 299 

Knowledge and Action. 

By Walter C Kerr, M. E 309 

The Next Step. 

By Walter C Kerr, M. E 319 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PACK 

Commencement Address. 

By Dr. Julian Kennedy 329 

Study Men. 

By John F. Hayford, C. E - 339 

Criticism of the Engineering Schools. 

By Professor Dugald C. Jackson 349 

Address to the Graduating Class of the School of Engineering at the 
University of Kansas. 

By Dr. J. A. L. Waddell - 355 

Last Words to the Civil Engineering Seniors. 

By Dr. Ira O. Baker 373 

The Engineer as a Professional Man. 

By Dr. Nelson Peter Lewis 379 

The Engineer and the Community. 

By Dr. William McClellan 391 

The Human Side of a Mining Engineer's Life. 

By Edmund B. Kirby, E. M. - 395 

Success. 

By Dr. M. E. Cooley - 403 

Some of the Essentials of Success. 

By Dr. Chas. Sumner Howe 411 

Address to the Graduating Class of the Rose Polytechnic Institute. 

By Dr. J. A. L. Waddell 417 

Graduate Study and Research. 

By Dr. Chas. H Benjamin 437 

The Need of Graduate Courses in Engineering. 

By Hon. Willard A. Smith 443 

Higher Education for Civil Engineers. 

By Dr. J. A. L. Waddell 449 

Formulas, Their Uses and Abuses. 

By Dr. Alfred Hume 513 

The Elements of Effective Education. 

By Professor John Lane Van Ornum 523 



xii TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

The Development of Engineering as a Profession. 

By Dr. Chas. H. Snow - 469 

The Story of a Lighthouse. 

By Dr. A. J. DuBois 475 

The Opportunities in the Electrical Business. 

By Dean Geo. A. Damon 497 

Closing Lecture to Senior Class. 

By Professor Vladimir Karapetoff 537 

The Human Side of the Engineering Profession. 

By Professor Vladimir Karapetoff - 541 

Index .... 549 



THE PROFESSION OF ENGINEER. 

By 

The Editors. 

Most young men when entering technical schools have no ade- 
quate conception of what the engineering profession really is. Many 
of them undertake the course either because their parents desire 
them to receive a useful education or because they think that engi- 
neering is a good calling in which to make a living; but very few 
of them enter on account of a heartfelt admiration of engineering 
as the profession of progress, to which are due practically all the 
wonderful developments of the world during the last one hundred 
years — developments that have so added to the comforts and con- 
veniences of man as to make life truly worth living instead of a 
burden grievous to be borne. 

A perusal of the succeeding addresses, of which this book is com- 
posed, will certainly acquaint the reader with the vast extent, the 
magnificence, the great achievements, and the wonderful possibili- 
ties of the engineering profession; but such perusal would require 
considerable time, and it is important that each entering freshman 
in technical schools obtain with the least possible delay some con- 
ception of the profession in which he is about to engage, hence the 
Editors have prepared this short paper for that purpose. 

The miost widely accepted definition of engineering is that of 
Tredgold made nearly a century ago, viz.: "The art of directing the 
great sources of power in nature for the use and convenience of man," 
and it is difficult to improve upon it, though numerous writers from 
time to time have made the attempt. Dr. J. James R. Croes wrote 
that "engineering treats of the intelligent direction of the laws gov- 
erning matter, so as to produce effects which will reduce to a mini- 
mum the time and physical labor required to supply all the demands 
of the body of man and leave more opportunity for the exercise of 
the mental and spiritual faculties." This, too, is a good definition of 
engineering; but it is incomplete. 

Another definition might be given thus: "Modern engineering 
is a combination of science and art by which all strictly material pro- 
ductions that involve construction, either directly or indirectly, and 
which are serviceable to mankind, are evolved, designed, and material- 
ized." 



2 THE PROFESSION OF ENGINEER. 

To prepare a complete detailed statement of what constitutes the 
entire field of engineering would be a Herculean task that it does not 
appear wise to attempt in writing this paper ; nevertheless an en- 
deavor will be made to list as thoroughly as practicable the principal 
types of construction and activity which pertain to the different 
branches of the profession. 

Half a century ago there were only two divisions of engineering 
— civil and military, but later the former was divided into four groups, 
and during the last two decades the tendency has been to divide and 
subdivide the profession until the representatives of each little craft 
now claifh a specialty of their own. The four groups referred to are 
civil, mechanical, electrical, and mining engineering; but no one of 
them is totally distinct or separate from the others, because many 
constructions involve two or more branches of engineering. For in- 
stance, the modern bridge with movable span, which most people 
would consider as belonging to the realm of civil engineering, in- 
volves mechanical engineering in the design and construction of its 
operating machinery and often electrical engineering in the pro- 
duction and use of the power required for operation. Again, in the 
development of a mine, which is generally conceded to pertain en- 
tirely to the line of mining engineering, civil engineering is needed 
in making the surveys both above and below ground, in the trans- 
portation of materials by intra-mural railways, and in many other 
ways; mechanical engineering is involved in designing the pumps 
and other machinery; and electrical engineering is applied in the 
production of their operating power. In truth, all the divisions of 
engineering are so closely allied that it is impossible to disassociate 
them; and, on this account, a really up-to-date engineer, while 
trained thoroughly in all that relates to his special line of work, 
must have a broad, general knowledge of all the other lines. 

Civil engineering, as understood today, includes all kinds of sur- 
veying from the simplest land surveying to the complicated and ac- 
curate Coast and Geodetic work ; the design and construction of 
bridges; extensive and difficult foundations; tunneling; retaining 
walls, sea-walls, and other heavy masonry ; viaducts ; ocean piers ; 
lighthouses; wharves; docks; river improvement; irrigation; harbors, 
jetties, and other waterways; levees; water-supply; sewerage; fil- 
tration; treatment of refuse; highway construction, including roads, 
streets, and pavements ; canals ; dams ; ordinary railways (both steam 
and electric) ; inclined cable railways ; gas-works ; the general design 
and construction of all plants (steam, electric, hydraulic, and gas- 
eous) ; the general design and construction of cranes ; cableways, break- 



THE EDITORS. 3 

ers, and other mining structures ; the heavier structural features of 
office buildings and other large buildings that carry heavy loads ; mill 
buildings; the general problems of transportation, quarrying, and 
handling of heavy materials ; reinforced concrete constructions of 
all kinds; and the testing of nearly all the materials used in engi- 
neering practice. 

In contradistinction, mechanical engineering includes the design 
and construction of steam engines ; gas and gasoline engines ; auto- 
mobiles; locomotives; aeroplanes; steamboats; machine tools; hoist- 
ing and conveying machinery; pumps; turbines; the machinery of 
movable bridges; elevators; cranes of the usual types; rolling mill 
machinery; blast-furnace machinery; and all other machinery for 
purely manufacturing purposes. 

Electrical engineering includes all kinds of electrical work, such 
as the designing, construction, and operation of telegraph and tele- 
phone lines; the electrical portion of railways; electric light plants; 
dynamos; motors; switch-boards; wiring; electric devices of all 
kinds ; transmission lines ; cables (both marine and land) ; and stor- 
age batteries. 

Mining engineering includes shaft-sinking and all other under- 
ground mining work ; means for handling the products of mines ; 
roasting, smelting, milling, stamping, and concentrating of ores ; 
drainage and ventilation of mines; disposal and utilization of mine 
refuse; and similar problems. 

If these items are not sufficiently numerous, it may be mentioned 
that the engineer is beginning to monopolize some of the work of 
the architect and of the chemist, such, for instance, as the design 
and construction of the main features of large buildings and the prac- 
tical chemical work of important manufactories. 

A perusal of the foregoing list of engineering works (which is 
by no means complete) ought to convince anyone concerning the 
vastness, grandeur, and importance of the engineering profession. 
Can its votaries be blamed for claiming that it is by far the most 
important of all the learned professions, that it is also the most 
scientific of them all, and that the wonderful progress of mankind 
during the last half century or more is due essentially to the energy 
and ability of engineers? 

If each freshman student as he enters his technical course will 
recognize and consider the wide field which his chosen life-work 
covers and its importance to the human race, one of two things will 
happen — either he will be so discouraged as utterly to lose heart, or 
he will be aroused to enthusiasm and, in consequence, will coiira- 



4 THE PROFESSION OF ENGINEER. 

geously and firmly determine to do his best to make himsdf a worthy 
member of the engineering profession. In the first eventuality he 
will do well to drop out of the race at once, because every successful 
engineer is of necessity a man of courage, and because weaklings are 
not wanted in engineering; but in the second, if he continue firm in 
his resolve, his studies and work will soon become a true pleasure 
to him, and, barring accident, he will be practically certain eventually 
to attain as great a professional success as his personal ability and 
limitations will permit. 



ADVICE TO FRESHMEN. 

By 

Francis C. Shenehon. 

Dean Shenehon, of the College of Engineering of the Uni- 
versity of Minnesota, very kindly offered the following paper, pre- 
viously given by him as a lecture to the Freshmen of that institution ; 
and the Editors feel truly grateful to him for his courtesy and valuable 
assistance. This is one of the most important papers of the book for 
the entering Freshmen, as it tells them what they may wisely do 
and what they should not do during their course. Any student who 
follows Dean Shenehon's advice is certain to profit greatly thereby, hence 
it is hoped that our readers will pay special attention to this paper. 

Francis C. Shenehon was born in Brooklyn, N. Y., on December 20, 
1861. He received his earlier education in the public schools of Brook- 
lyn, completed his college preparatory work at the Minneapolis Academy, 
and received his collegiate training at the University of Minnesota. 
His first work after leaving college was on the preliminary and location 
surveys and the construction of the "Soo" Line connecting Minneapolis 
and Sault Ste. Marie. After the completion of that railway, he en- 
gaged in general practice at Sault Ste. Marie. From 1891 to 1898 he 
was employed on the extensive River and Harbor works of the St, Marys 
River, including the building of the great Poe ship-lock. It was dur- 
ing this period that the hydraulic investigations of the Lake Survey 
were begun, and Mr. Shenehon took part in the work on St. Marys 
River. In 1898 he began work on the hydraulics of the Niagara River 
as part of the project to regulate and control the Great Lakes, and in 
1901 he began the investigation of the hydraulics of the St. Lawrence 
River. From 1902 to 1906 he was engaged in hydrographic work in 
the resurvey of the Great Lakes ; and at the beginning of this period 
he revolutionized hydrographic methods for navigable ways by the in- 
vention of the Tension Wire Sweep. When the question of the destruc- 
tion of Niagara Falls by the continued withdrawal of water for power 
purposes was raised, Mr. Shenehon directed the extensive hydraulic 
examinations for the United States. The investigations made in this 
project for the preservation of Niagara Falls, and his prior work on the 
Niagara and St. Lawrence Rivers, rank among the most extensive studies 
ever made in River Hydraulics. In 1906 he became Principal Civilian 



6 ADVICE TO FRESH M EX. 

Engineer of the United States Lake Survey, and directed the work of 
the Resurvey of the Great Lakes and the continuation of hydrauHc work 
in the St. Clair and St. Marys Rivers. 

In 1909 he was made Dean of the College of Engineering of the 
University of Minnesota. 

Mr. Shenehon in his capacity of hydraulic engineer has served more 
recently as Engineering Counsel for the United States in the extended 
litigation regarding the Chicago Drainage Canal, and in the Condemna- 
tion of the Water Powers of the St. Marys River. He is a member of 
the American Society of Civil Engineers. 

Editors. 



ADVICE TO FRESHMEN. 
By 

Francis C. Shenehon, 

Dean of the College of Engineering, 

University of Minnesota. 

Gentlemen of the Freshman Class: 

A custom has become established here which makes it the duty 
of the Dean of the College of Engineering to call together the fresh- 
men early in the year, in order that matters which are vital to 
success in college work may be clearly presented to them at the out- 
set. 

In compliance with this custom we are together to-day, and it 
is my great pleasure to welcome you and to begin to know you. Pri- 
marily, I want to congratulate you upon your choice of a profession and 
upon your great chance in life. It is only a chance, an opportunity, 
thus far. You have won entrance to this College — that means up to 
now work well done. Undertaking work in the College of Engineer- 
ing shows courage, for only strong men knowingly enter here where the 
portion is man's work. No mollycoddles may hope to prosper here. 
.You have entered a course so strenuous that success in it will call for 
every fiber of manliness you possess — all your pluck and endurance. 
You are, therefore, a body of picked men, each one of whom has the 
rare opportunity of completing the course and of taking up the prac- 
tice of the most virile of the professions — that of the Engineer. 

I do not hesitate to tell you frankly at the outset that the task be- 
fore you is not child's play or boy's work, because if any one of you 
does not thrill at the prospect of a stiff fight or of a swift race, he is 
not of such stuff as Engineers are made of — he is not in the right group. 
It is fine to be strong enough to conquer and swift enough to win; 
but the strength needed is not all brute strength — far from that — and 
the swiftness is not all speed. There is an element of persistence in 
winning a race, and an element of skill in conquering. You have al- 
ready given evidence of your ability to conquer and to win, and you 
will succeed, provided your path trends aright, and provided you keep 
eternally moving. 

A college education is the privilege of but few men. About one 
man is college-bred to eight hundred who are not. This makes the 
distinction a high distinction, and I trust each man here will resolve to 



8 ADVICE TO FRESHMEN. 

go on unswervingly to the commencement day that will place him- in this 
privileged class of college-bred men. It is a long distance through 
life. Many of you have fifty years of the journey yet before you. 
Do you not think these many years will be sweeter and fuller to you if 
you carry the consciousness of adequate educational training? Do 
you not think you will be better citizens, more helpful to your own kin, 
to your community, and to your country? Do you not think that trained 
hands and minds will enable you to raise in some measure the well- 
being of the many who have not the training which the present prom.- 
ises you? 

I wish to place much stress upon the value of the chance now 
yours, because I want you to make the most of it. You must make 
good, you mu^t realize the hopes for you of those at home, you 
must make worth while the sacrifice made by your people for you. Do 
not disappoint the mother and father. Live up to what the neighbors 
expect of you, and graduate with honor. Do you know that out of 
a freshman class of a hundred men, on an average only forty graduate 
while sixty drop out for one reason or another? Resolve that you are 
in the game to the end, and that you will not quit. 

You have doubtless heard that Minnesota plays football. The 
Maroon and Gold has a splendid chain of victories on the gridiron. The 
games will be on soon, and you will glory in the wonderful work, 
the speed, skill, and endurance of the team. Each man is working like 
a tiger to maintain the prestige and honor of the University. The rally- 
ing cry of our athletics is "Minnesota never quits!" Make that 
your own battle cry as you proceed in your college work, not in the 
field alone, but in your studies, in the class room, and in life. When 
you feel disheartened and weary of the eternal grind of human en- 
deavor, grit your teeth and say "Minnesota never quits." The world 
cannot defeat a man who lives up to that obligation. 

I wish you would note the fact that I am addressing you, 
not as boys but as men. You are treated here as men. You 
have been passing through various stages of evolution, but now for the 
first time, so far as your schooling is concerned, the obligations and 
responsibilities of manhood rest squarely on your shoulders. The first 
stage of the educational journey is upon the low level plain of the 
grade schools, and the peculiarity about the travel across this plain is 
that it is compulsory. The law compels parents to give their children 
this part. The state wants her people to have at least that amount of 
education, the rudimentary part, to avoid gross ignorance and the result- 
ing evils to the social structure. You are compelled to go on with it 
whether you wish or not. If you do not behave yourselves, if you do 



SHENEHON, 9 

not study, you are disciplined, but you have got to go on just the same. 
Now, the second stage is somewhat higher. You are on ground that 
overlooks the first low plain. This is the High School, and here 
also it is desirable that you go on and graduate. It is desirable that 
you graduate from High School whether you have the distinctive mental 
characteristics or character that will give you the highest success in 
life as a professional man, or not. The average citizen — and any citi- 
zen — is better off for his High School course, and therefore the policy 
of the state and of the city is to urge men to go on with this part of 
their educational training. After you have passed over this plain and 
have entered the University, you have stepped up to a high tableland 
where the conditions are very unlike those in the two thickly populated 
plains which you see spread out below you. On the two lower plains 
3^ou were first the child and then the boy, and now you have reached this 
splendid tableland where the air is clear and invigorating, and you are 
the man. Most of your schoolmates of the earlier school days are not 
here. The wage-earning activities of life have absorbed them. They 
have taken up the burden of men, but have missed your special privilege 
of dwelling for some years in the rare atmosphere of the academic 
plateau. 

Now, whenever anyone has a privilege, he has something which 
exists only at the expense of others. We have heard much of the 
special privileges enjoyed by manufacturers, who are favored by tariff 
schedules which enrich them but leave the masses poor indeed; we 
have heard of corporations whose special privileges, in the form of 
municipal franchises for gas or street car traffic, make great dividends 
for them at the expense of the people. Your special privilege is that you 
are becoming mentally enriched and equipped with professional training 
— at the expense of the state. Well, the state, so far as its money is con- 
cerned, is made up of people; and all the people of the state who are 
property owners are paying your expenses. Your townspeople, your 
neighbors; are paying good serviceable, sacrificial dollars, that you may 
have the special privilege of these years of training to make you abler 
citizens. It does not follow that there is any immorality or unfairness 
in the special privilege which the state has conferred upon you. That 
depends upon whether you do your work and accomplish the results 
aimed at in conferring upon you the privilege. For example, a street 
car company in a great city holding a valuable franchise for the use 
of the city streets, may give such excellent service at minimum rates 
that the special privilege (which another company might use to loot 
the public) becomes a special blessing. The tax is returned to the 
people with interest. If you regard your special privilege to expend 



10 ADVICE TO FRESHMEN. 

the money of the people of the state for your education as a trust im- 
posed upon you, and if you return at the end a capable, serviceable, 
educated Engineer, the investment has been worth while, and your 
special privilege has been transmuted to a special blessing. 

Your relation to the state is, therefore, such that an implied con- 
tract exists. The state says : ''In consideration of John Doe's doing 
each year certain work in accordance with the specifications of the 
University of Minnesota, which will convert him into a competently 
trained Engineer, the state will expend upon him three hundred 
dollars per annum for the term of five years, etc." If you fail to do 
your part in jthis contract, of course the state cancels the agreement, 
you lose your special privilege and leave the University. You must 
understand that the petty fees paid by you do not care for a fifth part 
of the cost of your education. 

I am stating this business relation between you and the state in 
considerable detail, because you are men, and will feel the obligation 
of a business agreement. Your professional life will be made up of 
agreements and fulfillments, and you will wish to begin your life as an 
honorable business man by meeting your obligations squarely here at the 
outset. Where a man receives money from his people for his living and 
other expenses, a second implied contract exists with his people, to per- 
form his work so as to do credit to them. 

You must understand that while our Engineers on the Campus are 
earnest, strenuous workers for the most part, now and again men appear 
without the business perception to live up to their contract. For these 
we have a pneumatic gun into which they are gently loaded and tossed 
into the uttermost realms of thin air. Do you remember the projectile 
which. Jules Verne conceived for the trip from the earth to the moon? 
That had water compartments, as I recollect it, with collapsing bulk- 
heads to absorb the starting shock. Well, our projectile has no col- 
lapsing bulkheads. 

It will be well for you to understand the organization of the Uni- 
versity, its parts and their relations, its administration, and the attitude 
of the members of the Faculty toward 3'OU. The University is now a 
complex organization of ten colleges. In the beginning the whole 
University was made up of a single college, with a President but no 
Deans. As it grew larger it separated into Colleges, each college or- 
ganized much like the original unit. The Deans are the executive heads 
of the Colleges, while ihe President is the Chief Executive of the 
University. Of course there is a business department for the handling 
of moneys, the purchase of supplies, and for keeping the accounts; 
then there is the Registrar who keeps the student records ; and a Super- 



SH EN EH ON. 11 

intendent of Buildings and Grounds. Above all are the Regents, who 
meet about once a month and act as the Directors. 

The College of Arts ranks first in seniority and the College of En- 
gineering second. Within the College of Engineering are the various 
departments, as the Civil Department, the Mechanical Department, the 
Drawing Department ; and each department has its head and its asso- 
ciates. Now the Faculty exists to direct you, to instruct you, and to 
serve you in every way it may, to the end which the state has in 
view in educating you. It may astonish you to find out how kindly each 
member of the Faculty feels toward you. Each member is a friend and 
an older brother. You will have every consideration as men; you will 
be treated with justice always, patience generally, and malice never. 
You must reciprocate and be kindly and considerate, just in your judg- 
ments always, vindictive and revengeful never. Sometimes you will not 
view things as your instructor does. In such cases you must be open- 
minded enough to feel that when your judgment conflicts with that of 
your instructor, the chances are that the older man is right and that the 
younger man is wrong. This is not always so. Age does not make 
men infallible. When you feel certain you are right, discuss your case 
good-temperedly and fairly with your instructor, showing him the re- 
spect that is paid a judge in a court of law. You always have the right 
of appeal to the Dean of the College. 

The Dean is your special counselor. He expects you to bring your 
troubles and perplexities to him for advice and untangling. In mat- 
ters of College affairs or of life you may expect a sympathetic hearing. 
I am aware that life sometimes takes on a somber tone with young men, 
things go awry, conduct sometimes goes wrong, the threads get badly 
snarled. Sometimes a profound gloom invades a man's mind. Youth is 
not wholly blithe and shot with sunshine. But those who have passed 
through periods of depression know that things eventually prove not 
so irretrievable as they seemed. After a mistake it is well to remember: 
''That men may rise on stepping-stones 
Of their dead selves to higher things/' 
Should a midnight fog settle down upon any one of you, grope 
your way to my office and let me try a few rays of sense and sanity. 

A story is told of a man who was stopping in a country hotel where 
the partitions were thin and the floors uncarpeted, and he was kept 
awake up to mid-night by a man in the next room who was pacing up 
and down. The annoyance finally became so great that he got up and 
knocked on the stranger's door and said to him, "My friend, you seem 
to be in some trouble." And the reply came in an agitated voice "Yes, 
I am; I owe a man, due tomorrow, one hundred dollars and I cannot 



12 ADVICE TO FRESHMEN. 

pay him." "Well," said the man, "you would better go to bed and let 
the other man walk'' Now, while that was not a full solution of the 
stranger's difficulty, it let a little sane sunlight in upon the situation. 
The man to whom the money was due, perhaps, was the proper man 
to worry under those conditions, although I do not wish you to infer 
from this that the obligation did not have its worriment. 

The Faculty of the College is a legislative body made up of 
all professors and instructors. It deals with the construction of 
the curriculum, the formulation of rules and regulations, student dis- 
cipline, and many other matters. Its decisions are wise in the main, and 
it gives full hearings in cases of importance. The Faculty has its com- 
mittees like all legislative bodies, the Enrollment Committee which you 
have met, the Student Work Committee which you are likely to meet, 
and several others. 

Remember that the Faculty is anxious to keep here and graduate 
every worthy man of you. Our College is stronger, more impor- 
tant, when we have greater numbers. Growth indicates a successful 
college in the eyes of those who judge us. But we are more inter- 
ested in putting the brand of Engineer and Minnesota only on men 
whose work and character are such that they will reflect credit upon us. 
We must stand for quality — honor and competence — first, numbers af- 
terward. 

We all, and the Student Work Committee in particular, are 
anxious to keep every man in his class shoulder-to-shoulder with his 
mates. If you get behind in a subject, you are a cripple, you are not 
keeping step with the procession. It gives us trouble. We must con- 
sider you and doctor you. For this reason you may see that we pre- 
fer to give you a passing mark — it is easier for the Faculty. But we 
are charged by the state with the obligation to give no credits, except 
as they are fairly earned. You may rest assured of one thing. We will 
not cripple you, to penalize you. Our penalties will be constructive, 
not destructive. Since this corps must march in a body, it would not 
be good generalship to shoot a man's leg off when he flags. We will 
prod him with a bayonet and urge him to keep up. If, however, 
he does not keep up, he must join the troublesome crippled squads 
This squad is a burden on the College; and our constructive policy is 
to keep it as small as possible. Do you know that in war time the 
wounded are a greater burden than the dead? The dead may be 
buried, but the woimded must have medical attention, nursing, and 
protection. Keep out of the crippled squad. 

Now, I am going to give you a term to express the kind of men we 
desire as a product of this college. We want "thorough-hreds," and I 



SHENEHON. 13 

wish to tell you what a thorough-bred is as I mean it. Perhaps I can 
do this most quickly by telling a story. Governor Odell of New York 
related it. He said he was out hunting with his father one day, and 
they had with them an Irish setter which was a thorough-bred, and 
had also a yellow dog. His father picked up the yellow dog by the 
nape of the neck and held it out at arm's length, and the yellow dog 
whined piteously. He dropped it and picked up the Irish setter. The 
setter hung there with never a whimper. He said, "My son, that 
is the difference between a thorough-bred and a yellow cur." Now, 
what the thorough-bred had was courage, self-control. It certainly hurt 
him just as much as it did the yellow cur, but he did not whimper ; and 
self-control is the one thing that will let a man win out in life. 

You are all familiar with the fact that each one of us, each man, 
is made up of two personalities. You probably have all, or most of 
you, read Stevenson's story of Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde. Each of us 
is made up of the fundamental instinctive animal part which wishes to 
do things whether they are fair or not, and the regulative controlling 
part or personality, which we really think of as the "I". When you did 
not mean to do a thing, but. you did it just the same, you were con- 
trolled by the beast, the brutal part of your make-up. The man who 
has himself in control is simply the man whose higher personality, the 
actual ego, rules the lower personality, rules the beast. It is a good 
thing to have a strong beast in you. That may be an element of strength 
in your character. The beast is the motive power. It is the thing 
that drives, but the higher personality must have this beast by the throat, 
absolutely control him, and make him do his work. In controlling 
your primal power you are first learning the work of the engineer. 
Now the engineer by definition is one who directs the forces of nature 
to the uses of man, and this powerful primative physical endowment 
is one of the forces of nature which every engineer must learn to con- 
trol and direct early in his career, else his career will not carry him 
to great usefulness in life. 

Now, you young men have come from the rural districts, pos- 
sibly the farm, or else from the city. From whichever of these 
two places you have come, you have an element of strength in 
that fact. The man who comes from the farm brings with him the 
strong skeleton, the brawny muscles, the sound nerve, and the sane 
view of things which is characteristic of those not too many genera- 
tions removed from the soil. On the other hand, the man from the 
city has the strength of finesse which comes from the urban life with 
its more complex relations and higher conveniences, and he comes also 
possibly from a generation or two of men who have used their brains 



14 ADVICE TO FRESHMEN. 

rather more than their hands for a livelihood. A generation of brain- 
workers makes furrows in the brain that help the generation which 
follows. To have had in the background of your ancestry some pro- 
fessional men may make your college work easier, and if you carry 
yourself aright you have on that account higher chances of ultimate 
success; but I want to warn the man who comes from the city, with 
his possibly smoother ways and more urbane manners, that unless he 
absorbs the strength, the good health, and the calm poise which the man 
from the farm brings with him, he is not going to compete successfully 
with the man from the farm. And, on the other hand, I want to warn 
the man who comes from the farm that unless he can gather to him- 
self something of the urbane characteristics of the man I have been 
speaking about, in the competition of professional life he may not win 
the highest rewards. It follows that of the two classes of men, farm 
bred or city bred, each has an advantage of his own at the outset; 
and in the end the successful man, the man who will win our highest 
admiration, is the one who can blend strength and polish. It is the 
mailed fist under the glove of velvet. 

Returning to the use of the word ''thorough-bred/' which I wish to 
be thickly strewn throughout this talk, I want to say that the kind of 
thorough-bred I am talking about is not of distinguished lineage. I do 
not mean men whose ancestors came over on the Mayflower, — be- 
cause it has been pointed out that the ocean liners of to-day offer better 
facilities for crossing to our shores,- — ^but I mean men who, when they 
leave our institution, have this combination of strength and urbanity. 

Now, there are certain things in your college course which I wish 
to bring into high prominence. An engineer in his direction of the 
forces of nature is an expert mathematician, applying to useful ends 
his mathematical attainments. The backbone of the engineer is mathe- 
matics ; and you men, if you are going to succeed in your college course, 
must get a firm grip on your mathematics, and clear up everything as 
you go along. To get behind in mathematics is fatal. Other 
courses depend on it. Your Physics of the Sophomore year and your 
Mechanics which comes later require higher mathematics as a pre- 
requisite. If you have failed to pass or are conditioned in your mathe- 
matics, you are at a serious disadvantage; and I advise you in the 
strongest terms to get your mathematics right. You are building a 
pyramid, and in the first course of masonry lies your Freshman Mathe- 
matics. You cannot lay your second course of masonry until the first 
course is completed. The Sophomore Mathematics is in the second 
course of masonry, and on top of this comes Physics, and another course 
is Mechanics. Bye and bye you get to the upper levels of the pyramid 



SHENEHON. 15 

wherein your structural work, your bridge design, your machine design, 
are the masonry courses. But you cannot lay these upper courses, and 
you cannot do your work in life as an Engineer, unless the bottom 
courses form a safe and adequate foundation. If by chance you should 
be conditioned in mathematics, — and quite a few me$i are — make it your 
first duty in life to get that condition off. Do not let the thing run on. 
Do not let it stand. One of the delightful characteristics of youth is 
to put off unpleasant things, but the thorough-bred we have been. talk- 
ing about does the thing, and does it now. In case you should be so 
unfortunate as to get a condition in mathematics, work it off as soon as 
possible. 

Now, I have spoken first of mathematics because it is of pre-emi- 
nent importance, but I want you to consider that the maintenance of the 
highest scholarship is incumbent upon you in all your studies. 

It is incumbent on Engineers to become versatile, cultivated men. 
If we cheapen ourselves by avoiding or slurring those subjects which 
educate us as men, because we cannot see that they aid us as bread- 
winners, our profession is but little more than a trade. We will receive 
l®wer money returns than lawyers and surgeons, and our opportunity 
for high service will be lessened. 

Because our profession has so recently emerged from the trades, 
our culture is questioned. Many people do not distinguish between a 
locomotive engineer, and a Mechanical Engineer. If you are satis- 
fied with the wages of a trade, you will not need to speak and write 
clearly and effectively, you do not need to study English and German 
or French — but you cannot graduate at Minnesota! This is not a 
trade school but a professional school. You will need to do just as 
conscientious work in Rhetoric and Language as in your technical 
studies. We want Minnesota Engineers to reach the high ranks of the 
profession, and not pass through life as subordinates. You will be 
useful men as subordinates, but there is something more useful 
and better. You find it hard to believe that language studies will help 
you as Engineers, but take this on faith now, and make your scholar- 
ship excellent in them. That these will count, accept as expert judgment. 

Your studies come first in importance but there are outside activities 
which are alluring and useful. I shall advise you to have some part in 
them, but always under the limitation that you have kept your scholar- 
ship high. But this high scholarship that I ask of you will not be 
realized unless you have a clear comprehension of yourself as a cutting 
mechanism. You cannot expect a dull tool to do keen cutting, and you 
cannot expect a dull mind to do easily and rapidly the scholastic work 
presented to you young men. You should find out early in the day how 



16 ADVICE TO FRESHMEN. 

to keep this beast that I have spoken of in high, vigorous condition, and 
how to keep this controlling will in high, fine condition also. 

First of all, keep yourself in good physical trim. You must 
have enough to eat. You must eat wholesome things. You can 
not expect such >an engine as you are to do work without the 
proper fuel. Then you must get the proper sleep. .Do not let any fairy 
tales about Napoleon's capacity for work on six hours' sleep lead you 
to burn too much midnight oil, because the more accurate historical fact 
is that Napoleon needed his eight hours' sleep the same as the rest of 
us men. Consequently, get your regulation sleep, and your brains will 
be sharp like cutting instruments. I read in a magazine not long ago 
that there is a physiological reason why a man must have his eight 
hours' sleep as a minimum. I will not vouch for its scientific accuracy, 
but I give you the statement as I read it. During the waking hours the 
high activities of body and brain create certain impurities in the blood 
which act as narcotics, or drugs on the brain. In the end this pro- 
duces sleep. Before the sleeping condition comes there ensues a tired 
feeling, and that tired feeling simply means that you have an excess 
of poison in your system. Your brain v/ill not work well under this 
condition, and you should not expect it to, any more than if ypu had 
taken a drug, and the drug was influencing you toward weariness and 
sleep. During the night time, the brain being at rest and the muscles 
at rest, the lungs go on pumping and the blood taking on oxygen, the 
poisoned condition disappears, and the man awakens full of vigor with 
a keen-edged mind. You gentlemen will be just as foolish if you do 
not get this full amount of sleep as you would be to work and ex- 
pect to accomplish good results with a dull tool. 

You need some exercise, and that has been provided for the 
most part, in your drill ; but you ought to get out and breathe the open 
air some minutes or an hour daily; and you ought to absorb the sun- 
shine into your blood and get the wind into your pulses, in order to 
keep yourself in the best possible condition. If, however, you overdo 
this matter of physical exercise, you use up the energy which you need 
for proper study. Therefore, the rule for exercise is *'Not in excess, 
just in moderation." Now, the beast in us would wish to carry exer- 
cise to excess because it is sweet to the physical sensation, but the con- 
trolling power which marks the thorough-bred will not permit this, as 
it will not permit any excess. Even in matters of eating, things taste 
so good that it is pretty difficult to eat with the moderation that is 
best, and here again the controlling personality of the thorough-bred 
will regulate. A man can be just as much of a sot in his eating as some 
men are in their drinking. 



S HEN EH ON. 17 

I am not going to say much to you young men about drinking, be- 
cause I am certain it is not necessary. We business men look upon a 
man who drinks as a fool, as a yellow cur. The "whiskey breath" 
warrants discharge from a man's position in many corporations in this 
country, and it discredits a man almost everywhere. As you young 
men by coming to this University have given evidence of intelligence^ 
I trust you have no illusions as to there being anything manly about 
drinking. I give you my full assurance that, acting as the employer of 
many young civil engineers, I never advanced a man in salary or posi- 
tion who I knew had any drinking tendencies whatever. Having under 
my direction several steamers, I have not permitted on any of those 
vessels liquor anywhere; and I have done this not from any fanatical 
dread of liquor but simply because it was good business to exclude it. 
The intelligence of the man who uses liquor is questionable. We do 
not expect much from a man of that kind. Drinking is simply stupidity. 
A man whose brain is active does not need alcoholic stimulation. 

Gambling is another thing which reveals a pauper mind. Men 
gamble for excitement. A dull brain which cannot find interest in the 
normal wholesome games and contests of life, must needs accent the 
excitement by money venture. Surely for young men full of the en- 
thusiasm of youth, with young pulses and minds keen for interest in the 
kaleidoscopic life of the Campus, it is not necessary to indulge in vi- 
cious things, or things that would make them less worthy in the 
eyes of their townsmen and townswomen, in the eyes of the mothers 
and fathers. Get your pleasure in wholesome ways that refresh but 
do not demoralize. 

In my life as an Engineer on the frontier, at the end of a railroad 
line under construction, where all sorts of adventurers preyed on 
the wages of the laborers, I have seen professional gamblers at work. 
I know how dishonest the games are and how degrading and pauperizing 
the practice is. In a railroad terminal I have seen men cheat in a 
game where detection would have meant death. I have seen adven- 
turous young men leave their money there. I have never seen any 
consecutive winnings. 

I am not going to do more than to touch on the social evil. It is 
a loathsome thing, repellant to clean men. I hope you will attend 
the special lectures on this subject to inform yourselves of the danger 
of any dalliance whatsoever. I trust the daintiness of healthy youth 
will steer you clear of the pest houses which are sometimes a lure to 
unintelligent, inquisitive young men. 



18 ADVICE TO FRESHMEN. 

As for tobacco, I would advise you to defer smoking until the Post 
Senior year. You will be older then, possibly wiser also, and may deciae 
the matter for yourself with maturer judgment. Many good men smoke, 
many better men do not ; some of the best men smoke, and some do not. 
We cannot separate the smokers and those who do not smoke, and find 
in the latter class all our best men, and in the former class all our 
poorer men. The mature man who smokes in fine moderation is not 
conderhned by his fellows, but the man^ young or old, who smokes to 
excess is an object of pity to clear-sighted men. Here, as in many other 
cases, the thing itself is insignificant, but its abuse lamentable. The 
firm grip on one's self which is the test of the man is needed in deal- 
ing with nicotine. Smoking costs money, can you not spend that money 
to better advantage, during your undergraduate days? Smoking takes 
the keen edge off the mind, do you not need that keen edge to cut 
your way through the manifold problems of your college work? Smok- 
ing sometimes dims the eyes ; you need all the strength of your vision 
for incessant application to your work. It is prohibited in many of the 
best offices of Engineers, because it lessens a man's output, and vitiates 
the air for others who do not smoke. - It is prohibited here on the Cam- 
pus. Of the American Members of the Board of Consulting Engi- 
neers for the Isthmian Canal, not one smoked, and these were most 
eminent men. Smoking in moderation is not very bad, but for you it 
is not now worth while. The disadvantages are real, the advantages in 
good fellowship and relaxation are intangible. Smoking is really in 
the ''twilight zone", between good and bad. The clear daylight is better 
for young men. 

Now, it has been called to my attention that some young men 
coming to this institution have not taken the proper manly view regard- 
ing cheating — cheating in quizzes and examinations. If this is so, I 
apprehend that it represents nothing vicious in intent but a wrong con- 
ception of what is a good joke. Some men probably think that, if they 
get through an examination by means other than knowing the sub- 
ject, it is a good grind on the professor ; but I believe that a young man 
who takes this view of it would better think about it a little more ser- 
iously and wonder whether a habit of this kind, which endangers 
his reputation in his college life, is not likely to become a fixed habit 
in his later years, and whether he may not join the group which contains 
the yellow curs and not the thorough-breds. I do not think young men 
appreciate very fully the fact that character, known honesty and jus- 
tice and kindliness, bring the highest money returns in our profession, 
but thev do. The man who is known as the Dean of American Engi- 



SHENEHON. 19 

neers, Alfred Noble of New York, past-president of the American 
Society of Civil Engineers, Chief Engineer of the Pennsylvania Roads' 
East River Tunnel, earns his great salary and his great esteem no less 
by his known probity and justice than by his high administrative and 
technical ability. 

At Ann Arbor a few years ago, at the University of Michigan, a 
man was found cheating. He ivas tried by a jury of his fellow stu- 
dents, adjudged guilty with a recommendation that he be suspended for 
a year; and I believe the offense committed fully warranted a humilia- 
tion as great as this young man received, — provided of course the of- 
fense were clearly understood. Let me make this matter entirely clear. 
In any of your exercises which is a test of your work, whether it is an 
examination, a quiz, or a theme, do not take help or give it. Do not take 
it because that is dishonorable, do not give it because that degrades your 
classmate, and in his dishonorable act you become an accomplice and 
are liable to the same treatment meted out to the culprit who received 
your aid. Do not be a good fellow to the extent of aiding and abet- 
ting a counterfeiter in passing spurious coin. You may be in doubt 
sometimes as to how far this applies. When in doubt do the franker 
thing. Err if at all on the safe side. Remember the adage, "If an 
egg is doubtful, it is bad." 

I expect you have already chosen your boarding houses, and that 
you have rooms which have good air in them and excellent light. Do 
not attempt to drive your mind at its best pace and with its highest 
power in a badly ventilated room. Your lamp for night work should 
be a good one. I myself when at work like to be flooded with light. 
It appears to keep the brain cells active. You know light is wakening 
and darkness induces sleep. Poor light is less vivifying to the mental 
faculties than brilliant light. 

You must assure yourself of reasonable quiet and freedom from in- 
terruption, if you would study effectively. Form the habit of 
absolute attention to the task in hand. Keep parallel all the forces 
of your mind in the direction toward which your work tends. Be 
master of your study hours, and do not permit any one to interrupt 
you. In *'Tom Brown at Oxford" I remember they had a special 
oak door to close when a man was at study and was not to be inter- 
rupted. He was said to be "sporting the oak" and it was bad form to 
interrupt him then. When you have work to be done, do not hesitate 
so to inform your caller. Be courteous, but do not permit your study 
hours to be encroached upon. Be systematic. Keep your room, your 
books, and your papers in business-like order. Disorder in your en- 
vironment will put disorder into your brain, and into your work. 



20 ADVICE TO FRESHMEN. 

Form the habit of the card index and the document file. Make 
of your room your office, and have it a business office. More time is 
lost in hunting up mislaid letters, papers, and documents than you can 
imagine. Special lectures will be given to you on "How to Study." In 
this you have an opportunity to prove yourself an efficiency Engineer. 
For five years now your task is to study. By bad methods you can 
accomplish too little to win high scholarship. By orderly, systematic, 
consecutive, incisive, effective work you may rank high and have time 
for some of the Campus activities that make the University life so de- 
lightful and inspiring. 

Some of you have already pledged yourselves to Fraternities. Pro- 
vided you are a thorough-bred, you may live in a Fraternity house and 
do good work. The good fellowship there is charming and valuable. 
You will be knit close to friends and brothers, who will endure through 
life. The friends you make in College stand apart, no others will be 
like them. But as fraternity men you will have diversions and activi- 
ties which are likely to lower your scholarship below that of men 
who are not of the fraternities. You must not go into a frater- 
nity unless you are financially able to do some things which outside 
men do not have to do. You will have to bear your share of the expense 
and this is sometimes not inconsiderable. Above all keep your friendships 
open. Do not tie yourself exclusively to a little coterie. Have your 
friendships as broad as the University. The fraternity men are gen- 
erally a well-set-up, clean, personable lot of fellows, who wear good 
clothes and cultivate courtesy and good form. These things are well, 
and are the ways of the city bred. You must conform as far as you 
may. In some fraternities the upper classmen exercise the prerogative 
of elder brothers, they advise you, admonish you, and see to it that you 
do your work. In this element there is hope of great good. 

We look for not only courtesy and kindliness in you men, but also 
for chivalry and good citizenship. You are in a way the guardians 
of our property here on the Campus. You wish to keep things fresh 
and presentable. The child of the grade school and the boy of the High 
School were sometimes young vandals, they delighted in breaking and 
marring things. They cut their initials wherever it was safe, they 
broke down the school fence, and carried away the gate. They broke 
the panes in the windows of the country school house. They did all 
sorts of boyish pranks and mischief. Now you are conservators and 
guardians playing the part of men. Foolish pranks in a College are 
to-day evidence of provincialism and low grade. When College men 
descend to mischief, they hurt the good name of the University, and 
make their own prestige less valuable. 



SHENEHON. 21 

As for chivalry ^nd courtesy, treat each girl you know as a pro- 
tective elder brother would. The most contemptible thing on earth is 
to degrade a woman. Let the College be known for its strong men and 
their fine courtesy. Touch your caps always to all professors. Never 
permit a woman to stand in a street car while you have a seat. There 
are only four reasons why a young man in a street car permits a woman 
to stand while he remains seated. 

First — 'He is ill. 

Second — He is a mollycoddle. 

Third — He is a boor. 

Fourth — He is not an Engineer. 

President Taft was called the most courteous man in Washington, 
because he once gave his seat to three women. 

As to what are known as College activities, do not hasten to get 
into too many things. No man can take part in half of the things going 
on and make good in the College of Engineering. You must choose 
with deliberation the things you may have a part in. Let me advise you 
when in doubt. It is your duty, and it will be to your profit to become a 
member of the Engineers' Society. Do that immediately. 

You should organize as a Class a little later. Elect officers, and 
have a get-together banquet. Wait a little while, however, until you 
know your classmates well enough to bestow the honor of President 
wisely and worthily. 

In closing I want to emphasize the high place and the high service 
of our profession of Engineering. It is full of the splendor of brilliant- 
achievement. Its horizon is world-wide. It is modern and pulsing with 
the vigor of youth, yet is as old as the Pyramids. It is vibrating with 
this new life, yet it deals with laws ages old when this earth was born. 
It is a profession of help, of service, of betterment. It builds, and old 
earth becomes more habitable. It gives ways of travel to the poor that 
the rich of old did not dream of. It floods the night hours with light. 
It takes the brutal part away from human labor. It is creative. The 
Engineer is co-partner with the gods and the master of gravitation. 



TWO KINDS OF EDUCATION FOR ENGINEERS. 

By 
Dean J. B. Johnson. 

The following masterly treatment of the subject of certain phases 
of engineering education is by the late Prof. J. B. Johnson, a technical 
instructor and author of the highest rank. In his early death, which 
was accidental, the engineering profession in America suffered a 
severe loss that is felt to this day. 

Prof. Johnson was a deep, clear thinker and a technical writer 
of wide scope and great vigor. His English, as exemplified in the 
following address, may well serve as a model to engineering students, 
and the advice that he gave is of the soundest. 

This paper will bear several close perusals. 

John Butler Johnson was born near Marlboro, Stark County, Ohio, 
June 11, 1850. He attended school at Marlboro until sixteen years of 
age ; and from 1868 till 1872 he taught school in Indiana and Arkansas, 
then went to Indianapolis as Secretary of the School Board. He also 
taught for one year in the Indianapolis High School. 

In 1874 he entered the University of Michigan, where he was grad- 
uated in 1878 from the Civil Engineering Department. From 1878 to 
1881 he was engaged on a survey of the Great Lakes ; and from 1881 
to 1883 he was Assistant Engineer to the Mississippi River Commis- 
sion. 

In 1883 he was elected to the chair of Civil Engineering in Wash- 
ington University at St. Louis, where he remained until called to be 
Dean of the Engineering School of the University of Wisconsin in Jan- 
uary, 1899, which latter position he held when he met his untimely death 
on June 23, 1902. 

He was a member of the principal engineering societies of America 
and England and the author of numerous important papers and books 
on engineering subjects. Some of the latter are still used as text books 
in a number of the leading technical schools and universities of America. 

Prof. Johnson's entire career as a man, an enigneer, an instructor, 
and a technical writer was ideal ; and it may well serve as a model to 
future generations of young engineers. 

Editors. 

23 



TWO KINDS OF EDUCATION FOR ENGINEERS. 

By 

Professor J. B. Johnson- 
Education may be defined as a means of gradual emancipation 
from the thraldom of incompetence. Since incompetence leads of 
necessity to failure, and since competence alone leads to certain suc- 
cess, in any line of human endeavor, and since the natural or un- 
educated man is but incompetence personified, it is of supreme im- 
portance that this thraldom, or this enslaved condition in which we 
are all born, should be removed in some way. While unaided in- 
dividual effort has worked, and will continue to work marvels, in 
rare instances in our so-called self-made men, these recognized ex- 
ceptions acknowledge the rule that mankind in general must be aided 
in acquiring this complete mastery over the latent powers of head, 
heart, and hand. These formal aids in this process of emancipation 
are found in the grades of schools and colleges with which the chil- 
dren of this country are now blessed beyond those of almost any 
other country or time. The boys or girls who fail to embrace these 
emancipating opportunities to the fullest extent practicable, are there- 
by consenting to degrees of incompetence and their corresponding 
and resulting failures in life, which they have had it in their power 
to prevent. This they will ultimately discover to their chagrin and 
even grief, when it is too late to regain the lost opportunities. 

There are, however, two general classes of competency which I 
wish to discuss to-day, and which are generated in the schools. These 
are. Competency to Serve, and Competency to Appreciate and Enjoy. 

By competency to serve is meant that ability to perform one's 
due proportion of the world's work which brings to society a common 
benefit, which makes of this world a continually better home for the 
race; and which tends to fit the race for that immortal life in which 
it puts its trust. 

By competency to appreciate and enjoy is meant that ability to 
understand, to appropriate, and to assimilate those gieat personal 
achievements of the past and present in the fields of the true, the 
beautiful, and the good, which brings into our lives a kind of peace, 
and joy, and gratitude which can be found in no other way. 

It is true that all kinds of elementary education contribute alike 
to both of these ends, but in the so-called higher education it is too 
common to choose between them rather than to include them both. 
Since it is only service which the world is willing to pay for, it is 

25 



26 TWO KINDS OF EDUCATION. 

only those competent and willing to serve a public or private- utility 
who are compensated in a financial way. It is the education which 
brings a competency to serve, therefore, which is often called the 
utilitarian, and sometimes spoken of contemptuously as the bread- 
and-butter education. On the other hand the education which gives 
a competency to appreciate and to enjoy is commonly spoken of as a 
cultured education. As to which kind of education is the higher and 
nobler, if they must be contrasted, it all depends on the point of view. 
If personal pleasure and happiness are the chief end and aim in life, 
then for that class of persons who have no disposition to serve, the 
cultural education is the more worthy of admiration and selection 
(conditioned of course on the bodily comforts being so far provided 
for as to make all financial compensations of no object to the indi- 
vidual). If, however, service to others is the most worthy purpose in 
life, and if in addition such service brings the greatest happiness, then 
that education which develops the ability to serve, in some capacity, 
should be regarded as the higher and more worthy. This kind of 
education has the further advantage that the money consideration 
it brings makes its possessor a self-supporting member of society 
instead of a drone or parasite, which those people must be who can 
not serve. I never could see the force of the statement that "they also 
serve who only stand and wait." It is possible they may serve their 
own pleasures, but if this is all, the statement should be so qualified. 
The higher education which leads to a life of service has been 
known as a professional education, as law, medicine, the ministry, 
teaching, and the like. These have long been known as the learned 
professions. A learned profession may be defined as a vocation in 
which scholarly accomplishments are used in the service of society 
or of other individuals, for a valuable consideration. Under such a 
definition every new vocation in which a very considerable amount 
of scholarship is required for its successful prosecution, and which is 
placed in the service of others, must be held as a learned profession. 
And as engineering now demands fully as great an amount of learn- 
ing, or scholarship, as any other, it has already taken a high rank 
among these professions, although as a learned profession it is scarce- 
ly half a century old. Engineering differs from all other learned 
professions, however, in this, that its learning has to do only with 
the inanimate world, the world of dead matter and force. The ma- 
terials, the laws, and the forces of nature, and scarcely to any extent 
its life, are the peculiar field of the engineer. Not only is the engineer 
pretty thoroughly divorced from life in general, but even with that 
society of which he is a part his professional life has little in common. 



JOHNSON. 27 

His profession is so new it practically has no past, either of history 
or of literature, which merits his consideration, much less his labor- 
ious study. Neither do the ordinary social or political problems 
enter in any way into his sphere of operations. Natural law, dead 
matter, and lifeless force make up his working world, and in these 
he lives and moves and has his professional being. Professionally 
regarded, what to him is the history of his own or of other races? 
What have the languages and the literatures of the world of value 
to him? What interest has he in domestic or foreign politics, or in 
the various social and religious problems of the day? In short what 
interest is there for him in what we now commonly include in the 
term "the humanities"? It must be confessed that in a professional 
way they have little or none. Except perhaps two other modern 
languages by which he obtains access to the current progress in 
applied science, he has practically no professional interest in any 
of these things. His structures are made no safer or more economical ; 
his prime-movers are no more powerful or efficient; his electrical 
wonders no more occult or useful ; his tools no more ingenious or 
effective, because of a knowledge of all these humanistic affairs. As 
a mere server of society, therefore, an engineer is about as good a tool 
without all this cultural knowledge as with it. But as a citizen, as 
a husband and father, as a companion, and more than all, as one's 
own constant, perpetual, unavoidable personality, the taking into one's 
life of a large knowledge of the life and thought of the world, both 
past and present, is a very important matter indeed, and of these 
two kinds of education, as they affect the life-work, the professional 
success, and the personal happiness of the engin-eer, I will speak more 
in detail. 

I am here using the term engineer as including that large class 
of modern industrial workers who make the new application of 
science to the needs of modern life their peculiar business and pro- 
fession. A man of this class may also be called an applied scientist. 
Evidently he must have a large acquaintance with such practical 
sciences as surveying, physics, chemistry, geology, metallurgy, elec- 
tricity, applied mechanics, kinematics, machine design, power genera- 
tion and transmission, structural designing, land and water trans- 
portation, etc., etc. And as a common solvent of all the problems 
arising in these various subjects he must have acquired an extended 
knowledge of mathematics, without which he would be like a sailor 
with neither compass nor rudder. To the engineer mathematics is 
a tool of investigation, a means to an end, and not the end itself. 
The same may be said of his physics, his chemistry, and of all his 



28 TWO KINDS OF EDUCATION. 

other scientific studies. They are all to be made tributary to the 
solution of problems which may arise in his professional career. His 
entire technical education, in fact, is presumably of the useful charac- 
ter, and acquired for specific useful ends. Similarly he needs a free 
and correct use of his mother tongue, that he may express himself 
clearly and forcibly both in speech and composition, and an ability 
to read both French and German, that he may read the current 
technical literature in the two other languages which are most fruit- 
ful in new and original technical matter. 

It is quite true that the mental development, the growth of one's 
mental powers and the command over the same, which comes in- 
cidentally in the acquisition of all this technical knowledge, is of far 
more value than the knowledge itself, and hence great care is given 
in all good technical schools to the mental processes of the students, 
and to a thorough and logical method of presentation and of acquisi- 
tion. In other words, while you are under our instruction it is much 
more important that you should think consecutively, rationally, and 
logically, than that your conclusions should be numerically correct. 
But as soon as you leave the school the exact reverse will hold. 
Your employer is not concerned with your mental development, or 
with your mental processes, so long as your results are correct, and 
hence we must pay some attention to numerical accuracy in the 
school, especially in the upper classes. We must remember, however, 
that the mind of the engineer is primarily a workshop and not a ware- 
house or lumber-room of mere information. Your facts are better 
stored in your library. Room there is not so valuable as it is in the 
mind, and the information, furthermore, is better preserved. Memory 
is as poor a reliance to the engineer as to the accountant. Both alike 
should consult their books when they want the exact facts. Knowl- 
edge alone is not power. The ability to use knowledge is a latent 
power, and the actual use of it is a power. Instead of storing your 
minds with useful knowledge, therefore, I will say to you, store your 
minds with useful tools, and with a knowledge only of how to use 
such tools. Then your minds will become mental workshops, well 
fitted for turning out products of untold value to your day and gen- 
eration. Everything you acquire in your course in this college, there- 
fore, you should look upon as mental tools with which you are 
equipping yourselves for your future careers. It may well be that 
some of your work will be useful rather for the sharpening of your 
wits and for the development of mental grasp, just as gymnastic 
exercise is of use only in developing your physical system. In this 
case it has served as a tool of development instead of one for subse- 



JOHNSON. 29 

quent use. Because all your knowledge here gained is to serve you 
as tools it must be acquired quantitatively rather than qualitatively. 
First, last, and all the time, you are required to know not how simply, 
but how much, how far, how fast, to what extent, at what cost, with 
what certainty, and with what factor of safety. In the cultural educa- 
tion where one is learning only to appreciate and to enjoy, it may 
satisfy the average mind to know that coal burned under a boiler 
generates steam which entering a cylinder moves a piston which 
turns the engine, and stop with that. But the engineer must know 
how many heat units there are in a pound of coal burned, how many 
of these are generated in the furnace, how many of them pass into 
the water, how much steam is consumed by the engine per horse- 
power per hour, and finally how much effective work is done by the 
engine per pound of coal fed to the furnace. Merely qualitative knowl- 
edge leads to the grossest errors of judgment and is of that kind of 
little learning which is a dangerous thing. At my summer home I 
have a hydraulic ram set below a dam, for furnishing a water supply. 
Nearby is an old abandoned water-power grist mill. A man and his 
wife were looking at the ram last summer and the lady was over- 
heard to ask what it was for. The man looked about, saw the idle 
water-wheel of the old mill, and ventured the opinion that it must 
be used to run the mill ! He knew a hydraulic ram when he saw it 
and he knew it was used to generate power, and that power would 
run a mill. Ergo, a hydraulic ram will run a mill. This is on a par 
with thousands of similar errors of judgment where one's knowledge 
is qualitative only. All engineering problems are purely quantitative 
from the beginning to the end, and so are all other problems, in fact, 
whether material, or moral, or financial, or commercial, or social, or 
political, or religious. All judgments passed on such problems, there- 
fore, must be quantitative judgments. How poorly prepared to pass 
such judgments are those whose knowledge is qualitative only! 
Success in all fields depends very largely on the accuracy of one's 
judgment in foreseeing events, and in engineering it depends wholly 
on such accuracy. An engineer must see all around his problems, 
and take account of every contingency which can happen in the 
ordinary course of events. When all such contingencies have been 
foreseen and provided against, then the unexpected cannot happen, 
as everything has been foreseen. It is customary to say, "The un- 
expected always happens." This of course is untrue. What is meant 
is "It is only the unexpected which happens," for the very good reason 
that what has been anticipated has been provided against. 

In order that knowledge may be used as a tool in investigations 



30 TWO KINDS OF EDUCATION. 

and in the solution of problems, it must be so used constantly during 
the period of its acquisition. Hence the large amount of drawing- 
room, field, laboratory, and shop practice introduced into our engi- 
neering courses. We try to mak^ theory and practice go hand in 
hand. In fact we teach that theory is only generalized practice. 
From the necessary facts, observed in special experiments or in actual 
practice, and which cover a sufficiently wide range of conditions, 
general principles are deduced from which effects of given like causes 
can be foreseen or derived, for new cases arising in practice. This is 
like saying, in surveying, that with a true and accurate hind-sight 
an equally true and accurate forward course can be run. Nearly all 
engineering knowledge, outside the pure mathematics, is of this ex- 
perimental or empirical character, and we generally know who made 
the experiments, under what conditions, over what range of varying 
conditions, how accordant his results were, and hence what weight 
can be given to his conclusions. When we can find in our engineer- 
ing literature no sufficiently accurate data, or none exactly covering 
the case in hand, we must set to work to make a set of experiments 
which will cover the given conditions, so ' as to obtain numerical fac- 
tors, or possibly new laws, which will serve to make our calculations 
prove true in the completed structure or scheme. The ability to 
plan and carry out such crucial tests and experiments is one of the 
most important objects of an engineering college training, and we 
give our students a large amount of such laboratory practice. In 
all such work it is the absolute truth we are seeking and hence any 
guessing at data or falsifying of records, or ''doctoring" of the com- 
putations is of the nature of a professional crime. Any copying of 
records from other observers, when students are supposed to make 
their own observations, is both a fraud upon themselves as well as 
dishonest to their instructor, and indicates a disposition of mind 
which has nothing in common with that of the engineer, who is al- 
ways and everywhere a truth-seeker and truth-tester. The sooner 
such a person leaves the college of engineering the better for him 
and for the engineering profession. Men in other professions may 
blunder or play false with more or less impunity. Thus the lawyer 
may advocate a bad cause without losing caste; a physician may 
blunder at will, but his mistakes are soon buried out of sight ; a 
minister may advocate what he no longer believes himself, and feel 
that the cause justifies his course ; but the mistakes of the engineer 
are quick to find him out and to proclaim aloud his incompetence. 
He is the one professional man who is obliged to be right, and for 
whom sophistry and self-deception are a fatal poison. But the en- 



JOHNSON. 31 

gineer must be more than honest, he must be able to discern the 
truth. With him an honest motive is no justification. He must 
not only believe he is right; he must know he is right. And it is one 
of the greatest elements of satisfaction in this profession, that it is 
commonly possible to secure in advance this almost absolute cer- 
tainty of results. We deal with fixed laws and forces, and only so 
far as the materials used may be faulty, or of unknown character, 
or as contingencies could not be foreseen or anticipated, does a 
necessary ignorance enter into the problem. 

It must not be understood, however, that with all of both the theory 
and practice we are able to give our students in their four or five- 
year course, they will be full-fledged engineers when they leave 
us. They ought to be excellent material out of which, with a few 
years' actual practice, they would become engineers of the first order. 
Just as a young physician must have experience with actual patients, 
and as a young lawyer must have actual experience in the courts, so 
must an engineer have experience with real problems before he can 
rightfully lay claim to the title of engineer. And in seeking this pro- 
fessional practice they must not be too choice. As a rule the higher 
up one begins the sooner his promotion stops, and the lower down 
he begins the higher will he ultimately climb. The man at the top 
should know in a practical way all the work over which he is called 
upon to preside, and this means beginning at the bottom. Too many 
of our graduates refuse to do this, and so they stop in a middle posi- 
tion, instead of coming into the management of the business, which 
position is reserved for a man who knows it all from the bottom up. 
Please understand that no position is too menial in the learning of a 
business. But as your college training has enabled you to learn a 
new thing rapidly, you should rapidly master these minor details of 
any business, and in a few years you should be far ahead of the 
ordinary apprentice who went to work from the grammar school or 
from the high school. The great opportunity for the engineer of the 
future is in the direction and management of our various manufac- 
turing industries. We are about to become the world's workshop, 
and as competition grows sharper and as greater economies become 
necessary, the technically trained man will become an absolute neces- 
sity in the leading positions in all our industrial works. These are 
the positions hitherto held by men Avho have grown up with the 
business, but without technical training. They are being rapidly 
supplanted by technical men, who, however, must serve their appren- 
ticeship in the business, from the bottom up. With this combination 
of theory and practice, and with the American genius for invention, 



32 TWO KINDS OF EDUCATION. 

and with our superb spirit of initiative and of independence, we are 
already setting a pace industrially which no other nation can keep, 
and which will soon leave all others hopelessly behind. 

In the foregoing description of the technical education and work 
of the engineer, the engineer himself has been considered as a kind 
of human tool to be used in the interest of society. His service to 
society alone has been in contemplation. But as the engineer has 
also a personality which is capable of appreciation and enjoyment 
of the best this world has produced in the way of literature and art; 
as he is to be a citizen and a man of family; and moreover, since 
he has a conrscious self with which he must always commune and 
from which he cannot escape, it is well worth his while to see to it 
that this self, this husband and father, this citizen and neighbor, is 
something more than a tool to be worked in other men's interests, 
and that his mind shall contain a library, a parlor, and a drawing- 
room, as well as a work-shop. And yet how many engineers' minds 
are all shops and out of which only shop-talk can be drawn! Such 
men are little more than animated tools, worked in the interest of 
society. They are liable to be something of a bore to their families 
and friends, almost a cipher in the social and religious life of the 
community, and a weariness to the flesh to their more liberal minded 
professional brethren. Their lives are one continuous grind, which 
has for them doubtless a certain grim satisfaction, but which is 
monotonous and tedious in comparison with what they might have 
been. Even when valued by the low standard of money-making, they 
are not nearly so likely to secure lucrative incomes as they would 
be with a greater breadth of information and worldly interest. They 
are likely to stop in snug professional berths which they find ready- 
made for them, under some sort of fixed administration, and main- 
tain through life a subordinate relation to directing heads who, with 
a tithe of their technical ability, are yet able, with their worldly 
knowledge, their breadth of interests, and their fellowship with men, 
to dictate to these narrower technical subordinates, and to fix for 
them their fields of operation. 

In order, therefore, that the technical man, who in material 
things knows what to do and how to do it, may be able to get the 
thing done and to direct the doing of it, he must be an engineer of 
men and of capital as well as of the materials and forces of nature. 
In other words he. must cultivate human interests, human learning, 
human associations, and avail himself of every opportunity to further 
these personal and business relations. If he can make himself a good 
business man, or as good a manager of men, as he usually makes of 



JOHNSON. 33 

himself in the field of engineering he has chosen, there is no place 
too great, and no salary too high for him to aspire to. Of such men 
are our greatest railroad presidents and general managers and the 
directors of our largest industrial establishments. While most of 
this kind of knowledge must also be acquired in actual practice, yet 
some of it can best be obtained in college. I shall continue to urge 
upon all young men who can afford it either to take the combined six- 
year college and engineering course, described in our catalogue, or the 
five-year course in the College of Engineering, taking as extra studies 
many things now taught in our School of Commerce. The one cry- 
ing weakness of our engineering graduates is ignorance of the busi- 
ness, the social, and the political world, and of human interests in 
general. They have little knowledge in common with the graduates 
of our literary colleges, and hence often find little pleasure in such 
associations. They become clannish, run mostly with men of their 
class, take little interest in the commercial or business departments 
of the establishments with which they are connected, and so become 
more and more fixed in their inanimate worlds of matter and force. 
I beseech you, therefore, while yet students, to try to broaden your 
interests, extend your horizons now into other fields, even but for a 
bird's-eye view, and profit, so far as possible, by the atmosphere of 
universal knowledge which you can breathe here through the entire 
period of your college course. Try to find a chum who is in another 
department; go to literary societies; haunt the library; attend the 
available lectures in literature, science, and art, attend the meetings 
of the Science Club ; and in every way possible, with a peep here 
and a word there, improve to the utmost these marvelous oppor- 
tunities which will never come to you again. Think not of tasks; 
call no assignments by such a name. Call them opportunities, and 
cultivate a hunger and thirst for all kinds of humanistic knowledge 
outside your particular world of dead matter, for you will never 
again have such an opportunity, and you will be always thankful that 
you made good use of this, your one chance in a lifetime. 

For your own personal happiness, and that of your immediate 
associates, secure in some way, either in college or after leaving the 
same, an acquaintance with the world's best literature, with the lead- 
ing facts of history, and with the biographies of many of the great- 
est men in pure and applied science, as well as of statesmen and lead- 
ers in many fields. With this knowledge of great men, great thoughts, 
and great deeds, will come that lively interest in men and affairs 
which is held by educated men generally, and which will put you on 
an even footing with them in your daily intercourse. This kmd of 



34 TWO KINDS OF EDUCATION. 

knowledge also elevates and sweetens the intellectual life, leads to 
the formation of lofty ideals, helps one to a command of good English, 
and in a hundred ways refines, and inspires to high and noble en- 
deavor. This is the cultural education leading to that appreciation 
and enjoyment man is assumed to possess. 

Think not, however, that I depreciate the peculiar work of the 
engineering college. It is by this kind of education alone that America 
has already become supreme in nearly all lines of material advance- 
ment. I am only anxious that the men who have made these things 
possible shall reap their full share of the benefits. 

In conclusion let me congratulate you on having selected courses 
of study which will bring you into the most intimate relations witli 
the world's work of your generation. All life to-day is one endless 
round of scientific applications of means to ends, but such applications 
are still in their infancy. A decade now sees more material progress 
than a century did in the past. Not to be scientifically trained in 
these matters is equivalent to-day to a practical exclusion from all 
part and share in the industrial world. The entire direction of the 
world's industry and commerce is to be in your hands. You are also 
charged with making the innumerable new discoveries and inventions 
which will come in your generation and almost wholly through men 
of your class. The day of the inventor, ignorant of science and of 
nature's laws, has gone by. The mere mechanical contrivances have 
been pretty well exhausted. Henceforth profitable invention must 
include the use or embodiment of scientific principles with which the 
untrained artisan is unacquainted. More and more will invention be 
but the scientific application of means to ends, and this is what we 
teach in the engineering schools. Already our patent office is much 
puzzled to distinguish between engineering and invention. Since en- 
gineering proper consists in the solution of new problems in the ma- 
terial world, and invention is likewise the discovery of new ways of 
doing things, they cover the same field. But an invention is patent- 
able, while an engineering solution is not. Invention is supposed in 
law to be an inborn faculty by which new truth is conceived by no 
definable way of approach. If it had not been reached by this par- 
ticular individual, it is assumed that it might never have been known. 
An engineering solution is supposed, and rightly, to have been reached 
by logical processes through known laws of matter, and force, and 
motion, so that another engineer, given the same problem, would 
probably have reached the same or an equivalent result. And this is 
not patentable. Already a very large proportion of the patents issued 
could be nullified on this ground, if the attorneys only knew enough 



JOHNSON. 35 

to make their case. More and more, therefore, are the men of your 
class to be charged with the responsibility and to be credited with 
the honor of the world's progress, and more and more is the world's 
work to be placed under your direction. The world will be remade 
by eyery succeeding generation, and all by the technically educated 
class. These are your responsibilities and your honors. The tasks are 
great and great will be your rewards. That you may fitly prepare 
yourself for them is the hope and trust of your teachers in this college 
of engineering. 

I will close this address by quoting Professor Huxley's definition 
of a liberal education. Says Huxley: "That man, I think, has had a 
liberal education who has been so trained in youth that his body is 
the ready servant of his will, and does with ease and pleasure all the 
work that, as a mechanism, it is capable of ; whose intellect is a clear, 
cold, logic-engine, with all its parts of equal strength, and in smooth 
working order; ready, like a steam engine, to be turned to any kind of 
work, and spin the gossamers as well as forge the anchors of the 
mind; whose mind is stored with a knowledge of the great and fund- 
amental truths of Nature and of the laws of her operations ; one who, 
no stunted ascetic, is full of life and fire, but whose passions are 
trained to come to heel by a vigorous will, the servant of a tender 
conscience ; who has learned to love all beauty, whether of nature or 
of art, to hate all vileness, and to respect others as himself. 

"Such a one and no other, I conceive, has had a liberal education; 
for he is, as completely as a man can be, in harmony with Nature. 
He will make the best of her, and she of him. They will get on 
together rarely ; she as his ever beneficient mother ; he as her mouth- 
piece, her conscious self, her minister and interpreter." 



THE DURABLE SATISFACTIONS 

OF LIFE. 

By 

Dr. Charles W. Eliot. 

Dr. Eliot, who for many years was President of Harvard Uni- 
versity, treats in this paper of matters of prime importance to all 
young men who desire sound education; hence it should be read with 
care and attention by engineering students. The principle of mens 
Sana in corpore sano is one that was long ago established; but, un- 
fortunately, it is still too ^ often ignored, especially in student life. 
Young men are prone to go to either one extreme or the other; and, 
especially in engineering schools, earnest students are given to de- 
veloping the mind at the expense of the body. This is a practice 
which cannot be too forcibly condemned; for, (to misquote holy writ) 
''what profiteth a man if he gain the whole of knowledge and lose 
his own body?" 

Dr. Eliot's remarks concerning "trained capacity for mental labor" 
are words of wisdom and should be heeded, and what he says about 
honor and reputation should be the very gospel of engineering students. 

It is through the courtesy of Messrs. Thomas Y. Crowell and 
Company, Publishers, that permission has been obtained to reproduce 
this paper from their book entitled "Durable Satisfactions of Life" 
by Charles W. Eliot. 

Dr. Eliot's biographical record is as follows : 

He was born in Boston, Massachusetts, March 20, 1834, and was 
fitted for college at the Boston Latin School. He graduated from Har- 
vard in 1853 with the degree of A. B., and in 1857 took there his A. M. 
He has received the degree of LL. D. from the following institutions: 
Williams and Princeton in 1869, Yale in 1870, Johns Hopkins in 1902, 
and Tulane, Missouri, and Harvard in 1900. 

From 1854 to 1858 he was Tutor in Mathematics at Harvard, and 
at the same time a student in chemistry under Professor Josiah P. Cooke ; 
from 1858 to 1863 he was Assistant Professor of Mathematics and Chem- 
istry in Lawrence Scientific School (Harvard) ; from 1863 to 1865 he 
studied chemistry and investigated educational methods in Europe ; from 
1865 to 1869 he was Professor of Analytical Chemistry in Massachu- 



37 



38 DURABLE SATISFACTIONS OF LIFE. 

setts Institute of Technology, spending a portion of 1867 and 1868 in 
France; from 1869 to 1909 he was President of Harvard University; and 
since 1909 he has been President Emeritus thereof. 

He is an Officer of the Legion of Honor of France, has received 
the First-Class Order of the Rising Sun of Japan and the First-Class 
Royal Prussian Order of the Crown, and is a Grand Officer of the Crown 
of Italy. 

He is a Corresponding Member of the Academy of Moral and Polit- 
ical Sciences of U Institut de France, Fellow of the American Academy 
of Arts and Sciences, Member of the Massachusetts Historical Society 
and of the American Philosophical Society, and Honorary President of 
the National Conservation Association. 

He has delivered many noteworthy addresses on educational and 
scientific matters, and is the author of several standard books on chemistry 
and other subjects — scientific, educational, and humanitarian. 

Editors. 



THE DURABLE SATISFACTIONS OF LIFE. 

By 
Dr. Charles W. Eliot. 

For educated men what are the sources of the solid and durable 
satisfactions of life? I hope you are all aiming at the solid, durable 
satisfactions of life, not primarily the gratifications of this moment 
or of to-morrow, but the satisfactions that are going to last and 
grow. So far as I have seen, there is one indispensable foundation for 
the satisfactions, of life — health. A young man ought to be a clean 
wholesome, vigorous animal. That is the foundation for everything 
else, and I hope you will all be that, if you are nothing more. We 
have to build everything in this world of domestic joy and profes- 
sional success, everything of a useful, honorable career, on bodily 
wholesomeness and vitality. 

This being a clean, wholesome, vigorous animal involves a good 
deal. It involves not condescending to the ordinary barbaric vices. 
One must avoid drunkenness, gluttony, licentiousness, and getting into 
dirt of any kind, in order to be a clean, wholesome, vigorous animal. 
Still, none of you would be content with this achievement as the 
total outcome of your lives. It is a happy thing to have in youth 
what are called animal spirits — a very descriptive phrase; but animal 
spirits do not last even in animals; they belong to the kitten or puppy 
stage. It is a wholesome thing to enjoy for a time, or for a time 
each day all through life, sports and active bodily exercise. These are 
legitimate enjoyments, but if made the main object of life, they tire. 
They cease to be a source of durable satisfaction. Play must be in- 
cidental in a satisfactory life. 

What is the next thing, then, that we want in order to make 
sure of durable satisfaction in life? We need a strong mental grip, 
a wholesome capacity for hard work. It is intellectual power and 
aims that we need. In all the professions — learned, scientific, or in- 
dustrial — large mental enjoyments should come to educated men. 
The great distinction between the privileged class to which you be- 
long, the class that has opportunity for prolonged education, and the 
much larger class that has not that opportunity, is that the educated 
class lives mainly by the exercise of intellectual powers and gets, there- 
fore, much greater enjoyment out of life than the much larger class 

39 



40 DURABLE SATISFACTIONS OF LIFE. 

that earns a livelihood chiefly by the exercise of bodily pov/ers." You 
ought to obtain here, therefore, the trained capacity for mental labor, 
rapid, intense, and sustained. That is the great thing to get in 
college, long before the professional school is entered. Get it now. 
Get it in the years of college life. It is the main achievement of college 
life to win this mental force, this capacity for keen observation, just 
inference, and sustained thought, for everything that we mean by 
the reasoning power of man. That capacity will be the main source 
of intellectual joys and of happiness and content throughout a long 
and busy life. 

But there is something more, something beyond this acquired 
power of intellectual labor. As Shakespeare puts it, "the purest 
treasure mortal times afford is spotless reputation." How is that 
treasure won? It comes by living with honor, on honor. Most of 
you have begun already to live honorably and honored, for the life 
of honor begins early. Some things the honorable man cannot do, 
never does. He never wrongs or degrades a woman. He never op- 
presses or cheats a person weaker or poorer than himself. He never 
betrays a trust. He is honest, sincere, candid, and generous. It 
is not enough to be honest. An honorable man must be generous, 
and I do not mean generous with money only. I mean generous in 
his judgments of men and women, and of the nature and prospects 
of mankind. Such generosity is a beautiful attribute of the man of 
honor. 

How does honor come to a man? What is the evidence of the 
honorable life? What is the tribunal which declares at last, "This 
was an honorable man"? You look now for the favorable judgment 
of your elders, — of parents and teachers and older students ; but these 
elders will not be your final judges, and you had better get ready 
now in college to appear before the ultimate tribunal, the tribunal of 
your contemporaries and the younger generations. It is the judg- 
ment of your contemporaries that is most important to you; and you 
will find that the judgment of your contemporaries is made up alarm- 
ingly early, — it may be made up this year in a way that sometimes lasts 
for life and beyond. It is made up in part by persons to whom 
you have never spoken, by persons who in your view do not know 
you, and who get only a general impression of you ; but always it is 
contemporaries whose judgment is formidable and unavoidable. Live 
now in the fear of that tribunal, — not an abject fear, because inde- 
pendence is an indispensable quality in the honorable man. There is 
an admirable phrase in the Declaration of Independence, a document 
which it was • the good fashion of my time for boys to commit to 



ELIOT. 41 

memory. I doubt if that fashion still obtains. Some of our public 
action looks as if it did not. ''When, in the course of human events, 
it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands 
which have connected them with another, and to assume among the 
powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws 
of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the 
opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which 
impel them to the separation." That phrase — "a decent respect" — is 
a very happy one. Cherish "a decent respect to the opinions of 
mankind," but never let that interfere with your personal declara- 
tion of independence. Begin now to prepare for the judgment of the 
ultimate human tribunal. 

Look forward to the important crises of your life. They are 
nearer than you are apt to imagine. It is a very safe protective rule 
to live to-day as if you were going to marry a pure woman within a 
month. That rule you will find a safeguard for worthy living. It is 
a good rule to endeavor hour by hour and week after week to learn 
to work hard. It is not well to take four minutes to do what you can 
accomplish in three. It is not well to take four years to do what you 
can perfectly accomplish in three. It is well to learn .to work in- 
tensely. You will hear a good deal of advice about letting your soul grow 
and breathing in without effort the atmosphere of a learned society or 
place of learning. Well, you cannot help breathing and you cannot 
help growing; those processes will take care of themselves. The 
question for you from day to day is how to learn to work to ad- 
vantage, and college is the place and now is the time to win mental 
power. And, lastly, live to-day and every day like a man of honor. 



ENGINEERING EDUCATION. 

By 
Professor Frank P. McKibben. 

This paper, which contains in condensed form much valuable ad- 
vice to engineering students, is reprinted from an editorial written for 
the Engineering Record; consequently the doctrine that it preaches may 
be considered to have the official endorsement of that high authority. 

The author graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Tech- 
nology in 1894, and began immediately teaching there, rising rapidly 
through the grades of Assistant Instructor, Instructor, Assistant Profess- 
or, and Associate Professor. In 1907 he was called to Lehigh University 
to take the chair of Civil Engineering, which position he still holds. 
Professor McKibben, however, is no mere theorist; for while attending 
carefully to his pedagogical work, he has simultaneously therewith filled 
the following positions : 

1897-1898; Assistant Engineer on the New Bedford, Mass., bridge. 

1899-1901 ; Assistant Engineer to the Boston Elevated Railway Co., 
Boston, Mass. 

1901-1907; Assistant Engineer to the Massachusetts Railroad Com- 
mission, Boston, M*ass. 

In addition to the preceding, he was Librarian of the Boston Society 
of Civil Engineers from 1902 to 1907. 

He is a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, the 
American Society for Testing Materials, the Engineers' Society of Penn- 
sylvania, and the Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education. 

Editors. 



43 



ENGINEERING EDUCATION. 
By 

Professor Frank P. McKibben. 

Now that the time has arrived for engineering students to return to 
their respective universities and technical schools, it is appropriate for 
them, before beginning the year's work, to survey the field with a view 
of deriving the greatest benefit from the time and money spent in the 
undertaking ; in other words, to see the purpose of an engineering educa- 
tion. The object which every young man should have for securing an 
education of any kind is to learn how to live, which includes a great deal 
more than the mere process of "making a living." The student who 
spends four years at a school with this firmly fixed in his mind will derive 
vastly more benefit than the one who thinks of his course as simply a 
means of "getting a job" upon graduation. He must remember that, 
to secure the greatest development, it is necessary to grow morally, men- 
tally, and physically ; and if he neglects any one of these elements he has 
not made the most of his opportunities. Students as a rule allow them- 
selves to be too easily influenced by what is customary rather ^than by 
what is best. For example, many spend no time in out-of-door sports 
except to watch the weekly Varsity contest, which is proper as far as 
it goes, but which is not so effective in building up a strong body as is a 
daily game of tennis or other similar healthy exercise. Throughout the 
entire course some form of legitimate physical exercise should be in- 
dulged in, with a view of improving the body rather than with a de- 
termination of breaking an intercollegiate record, which in the break- 
ing is very apt to overtax the powers of him who attempts it. 

Next to developing a strong body the student should exert his best 
efforts to accomplishing two things. First, he should train himself to 
understand and to deal with his fellow students and the teaching corps, 
and to make as many friends as possible in both these bodies. If this 
quality of mixing with men can be acquired in college, it will not only 
render college days more pleasant and more profitable, but it will result 
in a breadth of view about men and things that will make the student a 
more useful citizen throughout his after life. To accomplish this it 
is necessary, among other things, to take part in some of the various 
social activities which are to be found in every school, but here again 
a middle course must be taken and the student must not become en- 
tangled in so many of these non-scholastic activities as to allow them to 

45 



46 ENGINEERING EDUCATION. 

absorb his attention to the extent that other features of his training are 
neglected. In other words, it must not be forgotten that there are 
several things to be gotten out of college, and no student should so 
specialize in the social activities as to be found wanting either in the 
physical or scholastic training. 

While engaged in strengthening the physical and social sides, social 
here being used in its broad sense, each student must constantly bear 
in mind that the training of his mental faculties is one of the principal 
objects of his being in college; that while he is engaged in acquiring 
knowledge of engineering principles he should realize that this is a matter 
of the greatest importance and that whether he is in the class room, in 
the laboratory, or on the athletic field, his studies should be considered a 
serious part of his life's work. Although the mental training has here 
been considered last it must not be assumed that it is of minor importance, 
for the three sides of his development are of equal value both to the 
young man himself and to the world at large. 

It is essential that the function of the engineering course should be 
clearly understood and kept in mind by students and instructors. These 
courses should be followed in such a way that the student will not only 
learn how to think, but how to accomplish things as well, for the world 
gauges a man not only by what he knows, but also by what he does and 
the manner in which he does it. The power to formulate and to solve 
new questions which are constantly arising in industrial, in engineering, 
and in scientific fields is what each man should strive to obtain. Ta 
this end he must acquire methods of clear thinking, habits of industry, 
accuracy, and reliability. Let not the standard be the quality of work 
that will secure the lowest parsing mark, but rather let it be of a quality 
which creates the self-satisfaction coming from having done one's best 
wdrk. In other words, no man should be satisfied until he has done the 
best that he is capable of doing, and he must remember that it is vastly 
more important to himself that he sets and maintains a high standard in 
his work than it is for the teacher, or later his employer, to set it for 
him. 

Few students realize the value of being accurate. Unfortunately,, 
this is not altogether the student's fault, because it is the custom in most 
engineering schools to give more work than students can do well,. 
and then to be satisfied if they do 60 per cent, of it. The 60 per cent, 
represents the usual passing grade. Under this system it is difficult for 
a young man to do his best, but he should strive to eliminate errors 
by being constantly on guard against them. Let it not be forgotten 
that it is results, accurate and reliable, that are wanted ; that to under- 
stand the principles involved and to make numerous arithmetical or 
other mistakes in their application is even more serious than not to have 



McKIBBEN. 47 

the principles at all. In this connection it is desirable to emphasize the 
importance of self-training. The very best teacher can only point out 
the way, and it is for the student then to assume the responsibility of 
following it. Each man should cultivate self-reliance, and should close- 
ly scrutinize his own work in order that mistakes may be finally reduced 
to a minimum. This question of exercising care is a very serious one, 
and cannot be too strongly impressed upon teachers and students in 
our engineering schools. 

A thorough understanding of the underlying principles of chemistry, 
mathematics, and physics is very necessary in engineering, and the 
engineering school is by far the best place to get it. In addition to 
these subjects it is essential that attention be paid to their application, 
as exemplified in the study of hydraulics, strength of materials, and 
various forms of design, such as bridge and machine design. Design 
is especially useful because it trains the imagination, encourages re- 
sourcefulness, develops ability to attack and solve new problems, and 
what is of paramount importance, it fixes the principles as no other 
method of instruction can. By design is meant the application of prin- 
ciples of mechanics to determining the size and strength of the various 
parts of a structure without going so far into the details as to lose sight 
of the main problem. Let no one be deceived by thinking that he is 
learning bridge engineering when he is really memorizing the sizes of 
heads corresponding to certain commercial sizes of rivet shanks. De- 
tails such as this can be much better learned In the bridge company 
than in the college, while on the other hand, the principles of design 
can be more quickly, though no better, mastered in college. 

All students of engineering should take part In the activities of their 
local engineering societies, and should be familiar with the principal 
technical journals, because after graduation they will find that their 
college courses will really be continued in a measure by preparing and 
reading papers before the national engineering societies and by con- 
tributing articles to the leading engineering periodicals. Furthermore, 
by reading a good engineering paper there is seen the result of the 
application of principles learned in the classrooms and the text-books, 
thus adding to the interest and enthusiasm of the college work. It is 
well, therefore, that while In college some knowledge be acquired of 
these two branches of what may be said to constitute the post-graduate 
course of the average engineer. 

Finally, students should not attempt to specialize, but should get a 
broad, general training in fundamental principles, together with enough 
of their applications to fix them thoroughly. On the other hand, the 
mistake should not be made of confusing breadth with superficiality. A 
man can be broad and at the same time thorough. 



THE VALUE OF ENGLISH TO THE TECHNICAL MAN. 

By 
John Lyle Harrington, Consulting Engineer. 

Concerning the excellence or the reverse of this paper it l-etiooveth 
not the Editors to speak, as it is the work of one of them; i.^rvertheless 
it may, perhaps, legitimately be stated that after it was published in 
pamphlet form and widely distributed among engineers, professors, and 
students, it received unanimous approval and much commendation. 

It was delivered early in 1907 to the Technological Society of Kan- 
sas City, the Engineering Society of the University of Missouri, and 
the Civil Engineering Society of the University of Kansas. 

Upon whether its teachings be followed or ignored may depend 
the success or failure of any technical student to attain in after life 
the highest rank in the engineering profession. Possessing a mastery 
of the English language, he may or may not rise to eminence ; but with- 
out it, he certainly cannot. Any engineering student who wilfully neg- 
lects the study of his own language deserves the failure to attain emi- 
nence which assuredly will be his fate. 

Editors. 



49 



THE VALUE OF ENGLISH TO THE TECHNICAL MAN. 

By 
John Lyle Harrington, Consulting Engineer. 

Language is an instrument, a medium for the exchange of thought. 
If, in individual instances, both speaker and hearer employ words in 
the same sense and arrange them in the same manner, the expressed 
ideas will be perfectly understood, whether the language be in accordance 
with good usage or not. But, if thought is to be conveyed without 
loss to a larger audience, the medium must be substantially perfect. 
Words must not only be used in accordance with their accustomed and 
generally accepted meanings, and with all the shades and niceties of 
those meanings, but they must be arranged in accordance with the 
accepted construction of phrase, clause, and sentence; and the whole 
argument or thesis must be so ordered with regard to the sequence and 
the relations of the various ideas that the hearer shall be compelled 
to understand. Discourses in which thoughts, though they be ever so 
clearly expressed, are not arranged in logical order, will fail in their 
purpose, because the argument is confused and the mind of the hearer 
is occupied with the language instead of the substance of the thought. 
You will recall Sam Weiler's remark regarding Mr. Nupkins' eloquence 
that "his ideas come out so fast they knock each other's heads off and 
you can't tell what he is driving at." Like any other instrument, the 
value of language is in direct proportion to our knowledge of it and our 
skill in its use. If we understand it fully and use it skillfully it will 
serve our purpose well, but if we are novices and bunglers, only dis- 
appointment will result. 

Language, though it will not supply the place of thought, is a 
most essential instrument to every man. To him who is without im- 
portant thought to express, it is not a very valuable tool. The laborer 
does not require it in handling the pick and shovel; it is only in 
his social relations that he has much need for speech. It is not im- 
portant that the stoker speak fluently, or that the mechanic be an able 
orator or writer. But as we proceed from the lower to the higher and 
more intellectual occupations, the need and the value of knowledge and 
command of language rapidly increase. The politician, we sometimes 
think, makes skillful use of language to hide his thought, or to dis- 
semble. Indeed, in all walks of life there are times when words are 
well employed to obscure the thought. But the physician must be 

51 



52 VALUE OF ENGLISH. 

skillful in the use of language in order to direct and control his patients, 
as well as to write, and to understand the writings of his fellow physi- 
cians. The clergyman needs it to please, to inform, to convince, and to 
persuade his auditors. But the technical man, that is, the engineer, the 
architect, and the applied scientist of every kind, finds a sound, accurate 
knowledge of the language essential to him in every part of his work. 
A wide and precise knowledge of words is required in his reading as 
well as in his general writing; in his business and professional conversa- 
tions even more than in those of a social nature. But, in the prepara- 
tion and interpretation of technical correspondence, specifications, and 
contracts, the use of perfect language reaches the highest degree of im- 
portance. The lawyer alone needs to be so much of a precisian, and 
he attains that end by very awkward and cumbersome means. 

The technical man of the highest order is not only a cultured 
gentleman, versed in all the amenities of polite society, familiar with the 
best literature in his own language and probably in that of one or two 
others, able to read many branches of learning understandingly and 
to discuss them intelligently; but, in addition, he has special knowledge 
of mathematics and the applied sciences, and he is not only able to under- 
stand what is written or spoken but can express his own thought 
regarding them readily, accurately, and logically. The successful tech- 
nical man, it has been well said, must know much about everything and 
everything about something, but his ideas and knowledge are of small 
value except in so far as he can convey them to others; for, since he 
does not often labor with his hands, he must instruct and direct those 
who do. Thus, language is his most important tool, and it certainly 
behooves him to see that it is always in good order. His reputation as 
a gentleman and as a professional man depends very largely upon his 
knowledge and use of English. 

Perfect English is impossible, for there is no absolute standard. 
Read any critical work on the language and you will find exhibited 
examples of faulty construction and of erroneous use of words taken 
from books by writers of the highest repute. Pope, a precisian him- 
self, is frequently inaccurate. Johnson, whose chief work deals with 
the use of language, is bombastic in his writings, "makes little fishes 
talk like whales." Addison, whose English prose has long been con- 
sidered the highest example of purity and elegance in style, is often 
grossly inaccurate, sometimes positively slovenly. But the English em- 
ployed by writers of the highest rank, such as Milton, Goldsmith, Gibbon, 
Macaulay, Johnson, Hallam, Hume, Hawthorne, Motley, Irving, Pres- 
cott, Ruskin, and Stevenson, is the most perfect standard attainable. The 
usage of the best writers and speakers of the time is our highest 



HARRINGTON. 53 

authority, but even usage is governed by precedent and reason. The 
language grows. New words are formed as they are needed; old ones 
become obsolete; current words acquire new meanings; and construc- 
tions change; consequently, no permanent standard can be set up, but 
usage must continue to change with the needs of English speaking people. 
One must speak the English of the present time, but the right use of 
the language demands conservatism, judgment, and taste in making 
additions or changes. Each new dictionary offered contains, according 
to the advertisements, a large number of words not to be found in any 
other. This seems to indicate rapid growth of the language, but, as a 
matter of fact, it has grown little since Shakespeare's day. The vaunted 
new words are largely gross barbarisms, entirely out of keeping with 
good usage, and consequently their life is short. The history of the 
language is of great value in determining what is correct usage, but 
reason and 'good taste are more perfect guides. No usage is good which 
is not in accord with them. 

Bad English generally springs from ignorance or carelessness, 
quite as often from the one as from the other, but our newspaper- 
writers, and often our magazine-writers, are guilty of intentional abuse 
of the language. The newspapers reflect only the surface of life and 
rarely treat of substantial things; hence, they are, in the main, care- 
lessly written; but they also deal largely in fine writing, employ large 
words and high sounding phrases in the discussion of simple matters, 
strive by exaggeration to excite wonder, and indulge freely in the 
use of slang. Their style is frequently, even commonly, bombastic and 
ridiculous, their matter stilted nonsense. This is especially true when 
engineering and other scientific matters are the subjects under discus- 
sion. Busy and sane men are provoked to find simple items of interest 
which might be fully stated in a few words expanded into long, tedious 
articles, filled with big, misused words; but the greater portion of the 
people read little else than the newspapers and seem to like the ma- 
terial they offer and the language they employ. When these facts are 
taken into consideration, it is remarkable that the newspaper's style is 
not in more general use; it is a matter for congratulation and speaks 
well for the common sense of the people that the newspapers have not 
caused greater corruption of the language. 

The magazines are somewhat better in the English employed, 
but they are, as a rule, far below their professed standard. Hastily 
written stories, "pot-boilers" that are not worth reading, fill a large 
portion of their pages ; and many of the cheaper magazines are well 
supplied with pretentiously written descriptions of engineering works 
and the discoveries and enterprises of applied chemistry. The maga- 



54 VALUE OF ENGLISH. 

zines, like the newspapers, cater to the popular demand for marvels by 
publishing ill-written, pseudo-scientific articles in which mole-hills always 
appear as mountains. 

Our technical periodicals are decidedly better, for, though much 
of their matter is hastily and carelessly prepared and much of it gives 
abundant evidence of the writers' ignorance of the fundamental prin- 
ciples of the language, it is written in an honest spirit and is not 
padded or bombastic. Frequently the English is so crude, the thought 
so ill-expressed, that the matter fails to obtain, much less hold, the 
reader's attention. Long discussions appear in the columns which are 
open to correspondence, because terms are so carelessly employed that 
their import is not clear and disagreement results. It is not desirable 
that technical articles be elegantly or entertainingly written, but it is very- 
important that their style be clear and concise and the diction accurate. 

Some of the better magazines print only carefully selected matter 
and reject everything but scholarly, well written articles. Their influence 
upon the language is quite as good as that of the better books of the 
<iay; but the well written article costs more money than the ''pot- 
boiler," hence, the magazine is more expensive, its circulation is limited^ 
and it influences a smaller number of readers than does its cheap and less 
worthy competitor. 

Periodical literature, if we may so designate the newspapers and 
magazines, has been thus discussed because it exerts enormous influence^ 
much of it for evil, upon our language. Undoubtedly it has rendered 
large service in aiding the foreign-born part of our people to gain a 
working knowledge of the language quickly; and it has, probably more 
than any other agency, broken down any tendency toward the forma- 
tion of sectional differences in the use of English, for while we hear more 
or less of the pecuHarities of speech in the South and in New England,, 
as a matter of fact the differences in the language of educated people 
are of small importance. Again, by no means all newspaper English is 
bad. Many journals are ably edited and publish leaders whose English is 
of the best, but the language employed in the body of substantially all 
newspapers abounds in gross errors. 

The only influence which has greater sway over usage than 
periodical literature is the ordinary language of every day life. The 
language of childhood is exceedingly persistent. In fact some able 
writers on the subject go so far as to insist that one's English can- 
not be improved by study after maturity, that the usage of childhood 
will, with very slight modification, govern through life ; but it seems 
hardly necessary to say that this view is extreme. If it were correct, 
the increasingly large amount of instruction in English given in our 



HARRINGTON. 55 

high schools, colleges, and universities would be almost wholly 
wasted. To associate intimately with cultured people who speak 
good English, and to read well written books, are undoubtedly the 
easiest, most satisfactory, and most profitable methods of acquiring" 
and retaining good usage; but it seems irrational to question the 
value of sound instruction in the fundamental laws of the language. 
It may be that by taking thought one cannot add one cubit to his 
stature, but by giving the matter close attention one can certainly 
improve one's use of the King's English. It is true that the in- 
fluence of early habit is very strong. Men who have rooted out bad 
habits and acquired a good command of English", often, in moments 
of excitement, revert to the earlier usage, just as one who was foreign 
born will often revert to his mother tongue. But there is abundant 
reason to doubt that habits are ever so firmly fixed that they cannot 
be altered by exercising care. Our position would be rather hope- 
less if mental growth ceased at physical maturity. It is well knowrt 
that the style of even our greatest writers improves with years. 

Technical men are peculiarly prone to offend in the use of their 
mother tongue, because they have not, as a rule, read deeply in 
classical literature nor been instructed thoroughly in the construction 
of the language. Their higher education is generally almost entirely 
technical. Most of the engineering schools now require for matricu- 
lation substantially the same subjects that the colleges do, but some 
of the best still admit students with little more than a grammar 
school education, supplemented by the rudiments of the natural 
sciences and elementary mathematics. Cultural subjects are never 
required to any great extent, and they cannot be taught in the course.. 
The curriculum is already well filled with scientific, mathematical,, 
and technical subjects, and there is not room for a deep study of 
literature and the languages. The technical man who has a thorough 
knowledge of English has had the wisdom and patience to supple- 
ment his technical education by an arts course, has read widely of 
classic literature, or possesses the rare gift of language. Long con- 
tinued and intimate association with those who employ excellent 
English will ensure reasonably good usage, in fact such association 
is almost essential, no matter what the education may be; but the 
knowledge of the language so acquired generally breaks down when 
it is applied to technical matters in which extreme accuracy is a 
requisite and in which the terms differ much from those used in 
ordinary conversation. There is no royal road to a knowledge of 
technical English. 

Some of our better universities are now offering a six-years* 



58 VALUE OF ENGLISH. 

is sought. Deliberate elegance is a certain indication of pedantry 
and affectation and is often a sign of lack of breeding. Short words 
of English origin are invariably stronger and more rugged than their 
longer and more elegant synonyms which are derived from the 
Latin or Greek; hence their use is nearly always to be preferred 
except where the subject matter is abstruse or where nice distinctions 
in meaning are important. Then the Greek and Latin derivatives 
are frequently the more serviceable. But simplicity and force de- 
mand simple, direct language. The style should be so smooth and 
so unostentatious that the hearer's attention is not drawn to the 
language, but is left entirely free to follow the course of the thought. 

It is deplorably rare to find young technical men in possession 
of an intimate knowledge of rhetoric. Business correspondence is 
often annoyingly protracted because one or both of the parties con- 
ducting it ignore the simple law of unity and fail to round out and 
complete the subject under discussion. Errors of style and gross 
errors of composition are quite as frequent in the correspondence 
of the technically educated man as they are in that of the ordinary 
clerk who went to work when he left the grammar school. It is 
because engineers are so little accustomed to order their thought 
and language properly that they have so little part in the business 
and correspondence of the corporations which employ them. It is 
notorious that a technist is rarely a good business man. This is 
partly because of the exaggerated importance he gives to technical 
matters, but very largely because his thought is clumsily expressed 
and awkwardly ordered. 

The great value of the careful reading of good books lies very 
largely in the increased vocabulary and in the deeper knowledge of 
the nice distinctions in the meaning and the use of words. Two 
persons using the same dictionary will read definitions differently; 
and definitions are, at best, only the lexicographer's opinion as to 
what is the most general or most authoritative use of words. He 
records not only all the words he finds in use, good and bad alike, 
unless they are manifestly slang, but all the meanings of each, as 
well; and he does not attempt, except in a very general way, when 
he advises that a word is obsolete or colloquial, to instruct regard- 
ing usage. Good diction, however, cannot be acquired by reading 
alone. As words new to the vocabulary suggest themselves in the 
course of one's thought, great care must be taken to see that they 
are good words and that they are fully understood, for half knowl- 
edge is worse than ignorance. One has not made a word his own 
till he can use it correctly without thought or hesitation. The mean- 
ings of words vary widely and by nice differences, but ordinary lack of 



HARRINGTON. 59 

energy to study and use the words which come into the mind is 
the chief cause of the poverty of language, which is often mis- 
taken for poverty of thought. It is a common habit, when the 
meaning of a word which has suggested itself is not fully under- 
stood, to employ another which may imperfectly express the idea, 
but the meaning of which is known. Thus the vocabulary remains 
limited and inefficient through common laziness. 

There are many gross faults of diction caused by ignorance or 
carelessness or both, such as the misuse of prepositions; the con- 
fusion of like and as and of lie and lay; the use of get to express 
possession, of grow for become; and the formation of verbs from 
nouns; but they are as nothing compared to the use of cant and 
slang. 

Rigidity of ideas and poverty of language are chiefly responsible 
for cant, which is a fashion of using certain words in one legitimate 
sense to the exclusion of others, as though they possess a certain 
virtue which, because of this use, becomes peculiar to the user. It 
is closely akin to slang, but the words used are always genuine, and 
they are soberly and honestly employed. Its use is a certain indi- 
cation of a lack of breadth and arouses a kind of contempt for the 
user in the minds of more liberal thinkers. 

Slang consists of words, good and bad, and unmeaning jargon 
used in an arbitrary and conventional sense, generally with humor- 
ous pur-pose. But such humor is of the very cheapest kind, and it 
at once casts suspicion upon the entire discourse. Slang is rarely, 
if ever, permissible in writing, certainly not in business correspond- 
ence or in formal engineering documents ; but, if good taste govern, 
it may occasionally be used with good effect in conversation. Slang 
that has come into general use is invariably vulgar. "Genteel" and 
"elegant" are mere crudities, but no one of good taste and breeding 
will employ "That's right," "Sure," "I don't think," "Nit," "Hully 
Gee," "Drive you to. drink," and similar words and expressions, for 
they smack of the gutter. 

Those who know the language so well that they use it correctly, 
yet unconsciously, may gain ease of expression by taking liberties with 
it in conversation; but the grosser errors in tense, person, and number 
are never permissible. Only the pedant will insist upon the use in 
conversation of the dignified language of formal literature; but liberty 
is not license ; and pedantry is preferable to vulgarity. 

A grammar which was once, and, for all I know, is still in general 
use states that "We think in words and when we lack fit words we lack 
fit thoughts." The statement sounds well and was generally accepted 



60 VALUE OF ENGLISH. . 

without question by both teacher and scholar, but like many another 
plausible saying, it is only half true. When we lack fit words we 
certainly lack fit expression for our thought; but who has not sought 
urgently, even desperately, for a word* to express the thought pre- 
cisely and failed to find it. The sense of the idea was clear and per- 
sisted, but the word would not come. And how much thought does 
the Latin's shrug of the shoulders, the Jew's out-turned palms, or our 
own facial expression convey for which no word was ever formed, even 
in the mind. These expedients are employed to save language. They 
are suggestive, sometimes vague, but often exceedingly effective.. They, 
like the spoken word, are liable to misinterpretation; but they are none 
the less legitimate modes of expression. 

One of my college professors used to say when he had mistaken 
my meaning that my thought was not properly expressed or he could 
not misunderstand it. If we all possessed a perfect knowledge of every 
detail of the language, if laws of construction and the meanings of 
words were absolutely fixed, this idea would be correct ; but such a 
condition is impossible, and we shall go on misunderstanding each other 
till the end of time. But the more nearly we approach perfect knowl- 
edge of the language, the more nearly perfect a tool will it prove to be. 

If words are well chosen and the construction is in accordance 
with good usage, it is very probable that the thought will be reasonably 
well conveyed, no matter what may be the character of the audience. 
At least we shall have done all that is possible by means of language to 
make ourselves understood; but as we depart from the ordinary small 
talk of every day life and deal with the unusual or abstruse subjects 
of philosophy, religion, or science, the terms become more uncommon 
and less generally known, the meaning is the more liable to be mistaken, 
and consequently, it is all the more essential that the best usage be 
carefully observed. 

So far reaching are the effect of a difference in the meanings 
given to words or expressions that schools of philosophy which seem 
widely at variance often differ little except in the definitions of the 
fundamental terms employed. Many a heated argument, many a loss 
of temper and of friendship, many a suit at law, and many a life-long 
enmity would be entirely avoided if the principals would temperately 
define the terms of their differences. 

The character of the technical man's language is important in his 
social and business intercourse ; in his business and professional cor- 
respondence ; in the promulgation of orders, rules, and regulations for 
the guidance of those under his direction; in the preparation of specifica- 
tions, contracts, and reports; in writing and delivering addresses and 



HARRINGTON. 61 

technical papers; and in writing technical books for the advancement 
of his profession. 

In conversation, earnestness and force may, in some measure, coun- 
teract the evil influence of bad English; but, since less care is com- 
monly given to the spoken word than to the written, the results of bad 
habits of speech are much the same in either case ; and in moments of 
. special interest or excitement the habitual language is employed. Speech 
is usually heard but once, therefore its errors are much more likely to 
pass unnoticed than those which are written and may be read repeated- 
ly; and the audience of the speaker is much more limited than that of 
the writer; therefore it would seem less important to speak than to 
write correctly. But it must not be forgotten that in conversation there 
is no time, as a rule, to give thought to the form of speech ; and that 
ail the errors one is accustomed to make are liable to occur. The habit 
of using good English should be so firmly fixed that one is not conscious 
of it. 

A technical man is, presumably, an educated man ; and if he do not 
speak like one, suspicion is cast upon the entire range of his learning. 
When a man cannot spell correctly, or use ordinarily good grammar 
(and there are many university men who cannot) it is difficult to con- 
vince others that he is professionally able. The great majority of tech- 
nical men occupy salaried positions in the organizations of railways, 
governments, constructing companies, and manufacturing corporations. 
These positions are obtained by means of acquaintances made in a social 
way, by interview, by correspondence, or on account of an earned 
reputation. Yet I have granted interviews to many technical men who 
spoke like laborers, and have received hundreds of letters from them 
that would be a disgrace to a grammar school scholar. There are 
technically educated men who say "I have saw," 'T seen," and *T done" ; 
and there are men in high places who require no further proof of the 
speaker's deep ignorance, not only of English but of technical matters 
as well. One who is thus ignorant of the language finds social pro- 
gress substantially impossible. This may seem a trivial matter and 
foreign to our purpose, but it is not. Matters of very large importance 
are often settled by favor, and favor frequently follows social position. 
Other things being equal, almost anyone will show his friend the pref- 
erence in business or professional matters. It is even common to 
stretch a point in favor of a friend. 

Language has large weight, in classifying a man, infinitely more 
than manner or dress. It exhibits his breeding and indicates his social 
status. I do not mean that It shows whether he belongs to the so 
called "Smart Set," but whether he Is of the educated, cultured class, 



62 VALUE OF ENGLISH. 

whether you would care to entertain him at all, and, if so, whether you 
would send him to your less or more select club, or whether you may 
extend the extreme courtesy of inviting him to your home. This may 
appear at first glance to be of small consequence ; but great things often 
result from associations quickly formed. In fact, such social relations 
make largely for success or failure in the business or professional world. 
Many have received the opportunity which led to eminence through 
the recommendation of a casual acquaintance who was favorably im- 
pressed. 

There are many vocations in which it is not essential that a man 
be cultured and intelligent; but the technical professions are not among 
them. Nothing so surely marks a man's secret habits of thought, his 
real character, as the little tricks of speech which are exhibited when 
his mind is upon the matter rather than the manner of his speech. If 
his thought be habitually coarse, crude, or brutal, his speech will make 
the fact manifest at times ; and the speech of a moment frequently pro- 
duces a permanent and vital effect. 

In business correspondence the value of good usage is still more 
manifest than in conversation, since the written word is permanent, and 
correspondence greatly extends the field of one's intercourse. A letter 
very probably passes through many hands and multiplies the good 
or bad impressions of the writer it produces. If its import is not 
clear, it may cause disagreement or involve serious financial disadvan- 
tage to the writer. Even bad punctuation will often seriously alter 
the entire meaning of a sentence, and particularly bad grammar at 
once stamps a writer as being more or less of an ignoramus. The 
art of letter writing, like a knowledge of grammar, is commonly con- 
sidered to be within the range of everyone's learning and skill ; but 
anyone who has had large experience in business correspondence knows 
that few men write good letters. It is so rare to find a matter which 
is composed of more than one or two items, clearly, concisely, and 
thoroughly discussed in a letter that favorable attention is immediately 
attracted to its writer. Not a few men owe the opportunity for ad- 
vancement to their ability to write a good letter. Even though one 
be thoroughly versed in his subject and his discourse be well worth 
the time and attention of men of affairs, bad grammar will cast such 
suspicion over his whole equipment of learning that his argument will 
often be put aside without substantial consideration. Bad grammar is 
not a bar to the acquisition of money, but it substantially prohibits 
the acquisition of high position in the scientific world. 

The detrimental results of bad English in conversation or in 
correspondence are by no means so certain as in the more formal 



HARRINGTON. 63 

technical papers. In the preparation of articles for the technical 
press, and papers for the learned societies, there is time to study- 
form and style and to eliminate errors due to haste; hence, when 
such matters are ill written, it is not unfairly argued that the writer 
is ignorant of the correct use of the language. Such an opinion, 
widely disseminated, as it is likely to be when it originates thus, is 
exceedingly detrimental to the waiter. It weakens his arguments, 
causes him to be misunderstood, or so detracts from the interest of 
his readers that the matter is not read. The idea that a technical 
paper is dry at best, and that the English employed in it is of small 
consequence has long been proved incorrect. There is so much 
nowadays that is well written that no busy professional man is 
willing to spare the extra time and effort necessary to read and 
digest an ill written paper. 

A merchant may advertise his wares, a manufacturer his 
product, but reasonable modesty and his code of ethics prevent a 
professional man from advertising his skill. If he does not be- 
come known by his work or his writings, he remains in comparative 
obscurity. His ability is clearly exposed in his writings, in which 
he gives to the profession his best thought; and if he cannot write 
easily and well he will probably not write at all, for the censor- 
ship of the learned societies is now severe and is rapidly growing 
more so. Every normal, healthy-minded technical man desires to 
leave a permanent record of the results of his best thought and work 
to aid his co-workers and those who come after him. An ably 
written description of w^ork performed, discoveries made, or methods 
developed accomplishes more for the advancement of science than 
many well designed and well executed constructions. The latter 
benefit those who see them; the former may help all who can read. 

Provoking and expensive errors often arise from the misunder- 
standing of badly expressed orders, rules, and regulations. In large 
corporations, especially in railway, contracting, and engineering 
companies where employees are distributed over a wide area, it is 
impossible for an officer to give individual instructions, or to see 
personally that they are carried out; hence, general instructions 
must be so clear that they cannot be misunderstood or evaded. It 
is hardly necessary to say that the consequences of a mistake in 
train orders, in instructions regarding breaking track for repairs or 
renewals, or for making temporary construction to span washouts, 
may result in expensive and fatal accidents. And even minor errors, 
oft repeated, may prove very costly. 

But the preparation of reports, specifications, and contracts is 



64 VALUE OF ENGLISH. 

the most particular and momentous task the technical man has to 
perform. A misused word, a phrase whose meaning is ambiguou^. 
a paragraph that is confused, or the omission of a direction or a 
precaution, may result in great damage, to both the client and the 
technical man. It is not enough to be careful in a general way. 
Every word, every phrase, every sentence, has a direct and vital 
bearing on the work governed by the documents. I have known 
the presence in a contract of a single word of equivocal meaning to 
cost one of the parties many thousands of dollars, though when the 
contract was drawn there was no question regarding the intent of 
the parties to it. Probably the majority of the civil law suits are 
caused not by trickery or deceit or dishonesty, but by the use of 
ambiguous words and phrases, bad ordering of the matter, incom- 
pleteness, and other faults in the language of the correspondence, 
specifications, and contracts. There is no more certain way for 
the engineer to protect his own and his client's interests than to 
prepare all documents in accordance with the best English usage 
as well as with technical skill ; and there is no surer way to lay the 
foundation for trouble and financial loss than to neglect the charac- 
ter of his language. 

Notwithstanding the vital importance of clear, concise, and 
full expression in such documents, it is not uncommon to find 
specifications and contracts so bad in their construction that they 
fail utterly in their purpose. Let me quote' an illustration from the 
specifications, prepared by an architectural firm of some repute, for 
the construction of a building which cost nearly one hundred 
thousand dollars. 

"M-aterial and Workmanship. The entire frame work, columns, 
beams, etc., as indicated by the framing plans, or as specified, is to 
be of wrought steel, of quality hereinafter designated, all materials 
to be provided and put in place by this contractor. All work to be 
done in a neat and skillful manner, and is to guarantee the con- 
struction and workmanship with a bond equal to amount of tender 
for a term of five years, satisfactory to the proprietor and architects, 
to properly carry or support the loads it is designated to carry, namely 
its own weight, the weight of the several floors, roof and walls 
resting thereon, a 10,000 gravity tank, and the pressure of any wind 
which may not be designated a hurricane, and future three stories. 
* * * The floor beams are to be calculated for a maximum load 
of 150 lbs. to the sq. ft. (using C type IV of the Clinton Fire-Proof 
system, of Clinton, Mass.). The columns are to be calculated for 
a vertical load above mentioned and for horizontals and wind 
pressure and snow pressure, also roof. The whole to be calculated 



HARRINGTON. 65 

heavy enough for three additional stories on building should they 
be put on at any time, with connections at top columns to receive 
future columns. The columns on ground floor supporting front to 
be calculated in same proportion with all the rods necessary where 
shown. The whole of the columns to be one size throughout, those 
that carry more weight reinforced, and all columns to be kept 
as small as possible in proper construction. Each column to have 
%-inch holes bored or punched every 4 ft. 6 in. in height on each 
corner (for use of other trades to fasten metal lath)." 

The building was constructed under these specifications, not 
according to them; that would be impossible. But it is hardly 
necessary to say that the proprietors interested were not safe- 
guarded. The wretched paragraphs quoted are no worse than a 
contractor finds in specifications almost every day, for they are 
composed, as a large number of engineers and architects compose 
their specifications, by copying and combining sentences or para- 
graphs from various sources, instead of by writing them from 
fundamental knowledge of the construction desired. In such in- 
stances the client is protected infinitely more by the honesty, 
knowledge, and skill of the contractor than by those of the architect. 

Very few railway specifications for complicated structures are 
so well written that a contractor cannot comply with them to the 
letter, yet give the company construction far inferior to what 
the writer of the specifications intended, and thereby gain for him- 
self material advantage. 

The lawyers and the courts are kept busy rectifying the blun- 
ders of other professional men who do ill what they are paid to do 
well. I know of one contractor who has grown gray in the busi- 
ness of constructing buildings, who has never completed a contract 
without a lawsuit, and who has never lost a lawsuit. This speaks 
ill for the work of the architects under whom he worked, yet they 
are probably no worse than their fellows. If it were not good 
policy to be reasonably honest, many another contractor might 
easily approach his record. 

It would appear that we have given more attention to bad than 
to good English. This is not illogical, for, manifestly, if the bad 
be eliminated the good will remain ; and if the evils arising from the 
abuse of the language be fully comprehended, there will certainly 
be serious endeavor to improve the usage. The laws of the language 
are commonly violated from mere carelessness. Slang and pro- 
vincialisms creep into the speech and destroy its force and elegance ; 
the expression becomes slovenly and the thought obscure; and what 



66 VALUE OF ENGLISH. 

constitutes good English is forgotten unless reasonable attention 
is paid to the speech. 

It is not given to every one to speak and write fluently, for 
style of the highest order is a rare gift; but if good, vigorous 
English be employed, a good, clear, characteristic style will soon 
be developed, the thought will be well impressed upon the audience, 
and the influence of the writer will be correspondingly strengthened. 
Facetiousness, fine writing, and poesy are rarely of service to the 
technical man. Invective should almost never be employed. Sar- 
casm should be used sparingly; and nothing should be written in 
anger. Remember that "whom the gods would destroy, they first 
make mad,"^ and wait till your anger has cooled ; then your just in- 
dignation may be much more effectively expressed in firm but mod- 
erate language. This is quite as much a matter of language as of 
policy and ethics, for violent language is always more violent than 
the user intended it to be. 

Language itself is merely an instrument. Beautiful English 
does not constitute a meritorious discourse. The speaker or writer 
who uses language correctly and fluently but expresses no im- 
portant thought is a failure; for the sole service good English can 
render is to convey the speaker's thought and purpose fully and 
accurately to the minds of his auditors. But this service alone will 
amply repay years of study and a life of care and attention to the 
use of the English language. 

It may not be out of place to mention here a number of books 
which I feel certain will be found helpful. 

A number of grammars published in this country set forth the 
rules clearly and there are several good etymologies, but "Mason's 
English Grammar," published by Bell and Son, of London, contains, 
in addition, much historical matter which aids remarkably in com- 
prehending the subject. 

Lockwood's "Lessons in English" and "A. S. Hill's Rhetoric" 
are very good elementary books, and "Genung's Rhetoric" is the best 
of the more advanced works on composition. 

"Every Day English" and "Words and Their Uses," by Richard 
Grant White, are among the best written and sanest books which 
treat of English usage. They are substantially free from pedantry, 
a rare quality in books of this class. "What is Good English and 
Other Essays," by Harry Thurston Peck, also treats this subject ad- 
mirably, though it should be read only after a sound knowledge of the 
technique of the language has been acquired. 



^HARRINGTON. 67 

There are a number of good dictionaries. "The Century" is the 
most complete and scholarly, with the possible exception of an elabo- 
rate work now being issued in parts from Oxford University. But 
"Webster's International Dictionary," "Worcester's Dictionary," and the 
"Standard Dictionary" are good, serviceable compilations. There are 
several good books of synonyms, and "Roget's Thesaurus of English 
Words" will also be found very helpful in finding just the right word. 

Winchester's "Principles of Literary Criticism" is not only one 
of the most ably written works on the subject, but is itself one of the 
finest examples of good English we have. Sidney Lanier's books, 
"Music and Poetry" and "The English Novel," are also excellent crit- 
ical works. 

This list may be greatly extended; but a thorough study of one 
or two good books which treat each phase of the study of English, 
the reading of literature of the best classes, and reasonable watchful- 
ness over one's every day writing and conversation, will inevitably 
result in habitually correct use of the. English language. 



&\S 4 



THE NECESSITY FOR INDIVIDUAL ENGINEERING 

LIBRARIES AND FOR CONTINUING STUDY AFTER 

GRADUATION. 

By 

John Lyle Harrington, Consulting Engineer. 

As in the case of the last paper, the Editors are not at liberty to 
comment much upon the contents of this address ; nevertheless they 
are constrained to make the statement that any engineering student 
who fails to follow the advice which it gives will all his" life have 
occasion to regret having done so. Consequently, both the entering 
freshman an(J the recent graduate are earnestly urged to ''read, mark, 
learn, and inwardly digest" all that the author says and be governed 
accordingly. 

This address was delivered in 1908 to the engineering students of 
the University of Missouri and of the University of Kansas, and was 
afterwards printed in pamphlet form and widely distributed among en- 
gineers, professors, and students. The universal endorsement which 
it received is a sufficient proof of the correctness of the precepts which 
it puts forth, and an irrefutable reason for advising all engineering 
students to be guided by them. 

Editors. 



69 



THE NECESSITY FOR INDIVIDUAL ENGINEERING 

LIBRARIES AND FOR CONTINUING STUDY 

AFTER GRADUATION. 

By 

John Lyle Harrington, Consulting Engineer. 

Substantially every engineering graduate aims to achieve success 
along professional lines ; otherwise his education is largely a mistake, 
for an engineering course, though it supplies mental training of a high 
order, offers very little that is cultural, while a well chosen academic 
course affords equal mental training and, at the same time, provides 
the broad, general cuhure which is so advantageous in every vocation. 
Fame and position may be attained as a technist purely ; that is by 
confining the attention wholly to the design of engineering works ; for 
cities, railroads, contractors, and the manufacturers of bridges, loco- 
motives, engines, electrical apparatus, and other lines of machinery 
need such men and value them highly. Or, with a sound knowledge 
of the technical work for a foundation, success may be won as a sales- 
man or as a manager of sales ; as a publicity officer or advertising 
manager for manufacturing companies ; as an engineering educator ; 
as a manager of works and construction ; as a business or contracting 
manager; or as an executive officer in any corporation whose business 
is based upon engineering. 

Both money and position may be gained as a contractor in the 
construction of engineering works; and the field of technical journal- 
ism offers high rewards. But the highest professional position is to 
be gained as an engineer in the broadest sense of that term. This 
requires the greatest possible technical skill, both theoretical and prac- 
tical, in some important specialty and its allied branches ; and sound 
knowledge of the methods and the business features of construction, 
of the law of contracts, of the financing of engineering projects, and 
of accounting, including under that term not merely the bookkeeping 
relating to construction, but the consideration of operation, repairs, re- 
newals, sinking funds, and similar financial matters. 

Many qualifications are required for a high order of success. That 
one must have health goes without saying, for without health and 
strength there cannot be hard and continuous labor, either mental or 
physical; and success of any kind demands both. Intelligence is neces- 

71 



72 INDIVIDUAL ENGINEERING LIBRARIES. 

sary to grasp the most abstruse principles of mathematics and the pure 
sciences and to apply them to available resources. Energy of the high- 
est order must be employed to study principles, men, methods, and 
materials and to bring them together so that useful works shall re- 
sult. Integrity is absolutely essential to high professional success ; for 
the engineer's position is frequently judicial, and he must bring to his 
work all of the spirit of fairness that is given to man. The individual- 
ity and initiative to do original, thoughtful work is another essential 
without which the engineer becomes a hack or a grind who, though 
a useful cog in the machine, does little to advance his profession. But 
all these qualifications count for little in the struggle for professional 
success unless they are supplemented by a sound engineering education. 
Thirty years or more ago a great many eminent engineers obtained 
at least their technical education by their own efforts. Then the pro- 
fession was comparatively undeveloped, technical literature was meagre, 
and it was much easier than it is today to learn all that was most 
important of any one branch of engineering. Self education is pos- 
sible now, but it is rarely broad, and it generally fails at the critical 
moment. The man who has educated himself rarely has the training 
necessary to keep pace with the advancement of engineering science, 
and he is much more apt to be a ''rule of thumb engineer" or a copyist 
than an original thinker. Nowadays graduation from an engineering 
school of good standing counts for so much that only the lower posi- 
tions are, as a rule, open to the man who is without it. Graduation 
is a guarantee of a certain training, and employers demand it. 

The technical course, however, is only the beginning of an engi- 
neer's education, the first stretch of a long and interesting but difficult 
road. The present requirements for admission to institutions of the 
first grade are as high as, too often higher than, the secondary schools 
are prepared to satisfy, and the four-year courses are crowded well 
nigh to the limit of the capacity of the average student; yet the en- 
gineering graduate is taught only the elements of a few important 
branches and is left substantially without knowledge of many subjects 
which are closely allied to any specialty he may choose. This is not 
the fault of the schools, for it is their function to perform the greatest 
possible service to the community which supports them, rather than 
to maintain certain ideals; but it is due to the inability or unwilling- 
ness of the student to spend the requisite time and energy upon his 
education. To raise materially the requirements for admission or to 
increase the length of the course would diminish greatly the number 
of students; and, while the few would be better prepared, the com- 
munity as a whole would not be so well served. 



HARRINGTON. 73 

There is at present a strong tendency to require more work of 
the engineering graduate. President Schurman of Cornell University 
is advocating a five-year engineering course, as Dr. Waddell has been 
doing for more than twenty years. Dartmouth and Cornell urge a 
special academic course which leads to a bachelor's degree and includes 
sound training in mathematics, languages, and the natural sciences, 
and which is followed by a two-year course in purely technical work, 
leading to the professional degree. Several institutions are offering 
five-year courses, and many provide a year's graduate work for those 
who are willing and able to prepare themselves more thoroughly than 
usual. 

Engineering educators very generally recognize that our gradu- 
ates are lacking both in culture and in breadth of technical knowledge; 
and they are earnestly seeking means for improvement. Some prom- 
inent professors are beginning to demand a collegiate education in 
preparation for the engineering study, just as such training is now 
required in many Eastern Schools in preparation for the study of law 
and medicine; for it is evident that the engineer needs for his highest 
development more training, more and broader knowledge, and more 
culture than he commonly possesses. The enormous increase in the 
number of students pursuing technical courses ensures very keen com- 
petition in all branches of engineering; for, though the field is widen- 
ing rapidly and during the recent period of remarkable prosperity the 
demand for engineers was greater than the supply, the day is not far 
distant when employers will be more at liberty than they have been to 
select men especially suited to their needs. Then the law of the sur- 
vival of the fittest will operate more truly; and education and train- 
ing will count for still more than they do today. Then, even more 
certainly than now, only the ablest and best educated men will sit in 
high places and ordinary talent will remain in the ranks. 

Now I want to state in the most emphatic terms at command that, 
no matter how high the standard of your school, when you graduate 
your education is only well begun, that if you do not continue your 
studies with as much or more vigor than you have commonly employed, 
you will have exceedingly small chance to win fame or position. You 
will be left standing at the post, and the races will be won by men 
who know their deficiencies and who take prompt and energetic steps 
to remove them. Your shortcomings are not limited to ignorance of 
subjects you have not studied. As soon as you are called upon to apply 
commercially the technical knowledge acquired while in school, you 
will become painfully aware that both your best efforts and those of 
your instructors have not given you such command of the facts and 



74 INDIVIDUAL ENGINEERING LIBRARIES. 

principles of engineering that you can employ them with facility and 
assurance. During your course there was not sufficient occasion for 
applying the knowledge you gained to make its use a habit, and since 
completing the study of many subjects there has been time to forget 
much of them. 

The great danger comes when you leave your alma mater and 
go out to take your place in the world. The man whose diploma is 
fresh is rarely given work which demands the immediate use of his 
theoretical knowledge, even that relating to one subject. The more 
mechanical work of drafting, inspection, or running an instrument is 
what he can do best, and, consequently, what he will be given to do; 
and it may be years before his duties attain such a breadth that the 
entire range of his technical knowledge will be called into play. When 
the demand does come it will come suddenly, and often it will be un- 
recognized. Then woe unto him who has considered his technical 
course all sufficient, for he will be like the foolish virgins in the parable, 
he will lack oil for his lamp and there will be no time to get it. He 
has not only failed to study and grow as the years passed, but he has 
lost a large part of the knowledge he spent four years to gain; and 
the prize is not for him. 

Let me illustrate by citing a few of the many instances which 
have come under my observation. Though each case will show only a 
single failure, it will indicate clearly the general status of the knowl- 
edge possessed by the engineer in question. 

One man, after six years in the bridge shops, could not calculate 
the stresses in a Warren truss produced by static loads. Another, after 
spending twelve years detailing and inspecting bridges, could not de- 
termine the stresses produced in a beam by a locomotive. Another 
who had spent eight years detailing bridges and structural work could 
not find the reactions from a simple cantilever crane. Still another 
of seven years' experience could calculate graphically with facility but 
could do nothing analytically. One man was found to be unable to 
make a stress sheet for a parallel-chord, Pratt-truss highway bridge, 
though he had spent nearly three years in one of the best bridge shops 
in the country. Another who had been employed for two years in the 
office of the bridge engineer of one of the prominent railroads could 
not find the position of two wheels which would produce the maximum 
moment in a beam. An electrical engineer of four years' experience, 
when working out some electric locomotive problems, considered the 
grade in per cent to be numerically equal to the degrees of angle be- 
tween the track and the horizontal. This error ultimately cost him a 
position which aflforded a salary of thirty-five hundred dollars a year. 



HARRINGTON. 75 

An experienced mechanical graduate was astonished to find that the 
speed with which steam will travel through a port is calculable. An- 
other found it impossible to conceive that a steam turbine is operated 
by the impulse instead of by the pressure of steam. And I have 
known several experienced mechanical men who could not determine 
what series wound motor is required to hoist a given load through a 
fixed distance in a certain time, because they could not read the per- 
formance curves of the motors. 

Since you may say these are isolated cases and, consequently, prove 
nothing, I shall cite one more which is so sweepingly general that it 
seems incredible. A prominent bridge company wanted another de- 
signing engineer. They employed about seventy men, substantially all 
technical graduates, in the detail drawing rooms. In the course of a 
few months the chief engineer tested every man of promise among 
them to see if one could not, in reasonable time, be trained to fill the 
position; but all so lacked theoretical knowledge or facility in its 
use that an engineer was obtained elsewhere at twice the salary re- 
ceived by the best paid man in the drafting rooms. Probably every 
man of the seventy would gladly have taken up the designing work 
for less salary than he was then receiving, but not one was prepared 
and ready. 

I might cite many more such examples, but I think abundant have 
been presented to convince you that the technical education must be 
carried on vigorously and continuously after graduation, if positions 
much higher than those of skilled workmen are to be attained. With- 
out exception, the men mentioned in the individual examples I have 
just cited were graduates of Eastern engineering schools of the high- 
est standing. They had every advantage which you have now or 
will have when you graduate, unless you possess the energy and fore- 
sight to acquire and to study thoroughly and persistently a library 
of the best books, periodicals, and technical society papers which re- 
late to your specialty and its allied branches. If you avoid this work 
and try to cope unaided with the many problems which will confront 
you, you must inevitably fail and occupy through life a very subordi- 
nate or at best a secondary position. 

Let us examine the undergraduate course carefully in order to 
determine what it accomplishes, what are its limitations, and how you 
may, while still in school, strengthen yourselves against the day when 
you are turned out into the world to sink or swim professionally; when 
you no longer have within reach instructors ready to help you over the 
rough places and to guide and direct you at need. 



76 INDIVIDUAL ENGINEERING LIBRARIES. 

The first two years are devoted almost exclusivel}^ to the study 
of mathematics, languages, and the natural sciences, subjects which 
aftord culture and excellent mental training, and form the basis for 
the technical work, but are in themselves not at all technical. During 
this period the student's capacity for study and his ability to grasp a 
new subject are greatly improved, but only two years are left for the 
technical work; and it taxes the ingenuity of the Faculty, and some- 
times the strength of the student, to cover in that limited time all of 
the more important fundamental subjects relating to any branch of 
engineering. Many closely allied subjects must be left untouched, and 
there is time for only the elements of many of those considered. It is 
impossible in the time available to make a deep and comprehensive 
study of any one branch without neglecting other important subjects. 

President Woodrow Wilson of Princeton University has recently 
argued before a meeting of teachers that our educational methods are 
all wrong, that we teach too many subjects and no subject thoroughly 
enough. There is a measure of truth in the statement, for it is better 
to be well versed in some one line, so well that the knowledge is con- 
stantly available for use, than to know something of many lines, but 
so little of any one that the knowledge is not of much service. It is 
always difficult so to draw the line between deep preparation and 
broad preparation that the greatest . good will result. In fact no general 
rule will apply, but the courses must be laid down for the average stu- 
dent in accord with the Faculty's best judgment. Some men would 
be benefited by more concentrated work, for the}^ may tend naturally 
to . breadth ; on the other hand many men would, if possible, select 
easy work under the guise of seeking breadth, and thus fail to obtain 
the necessary training. 

Most students desire and many engineers urge that more practice 
be taught, and that the relations between theory and practice be made 
clearer; but educators have wisely refused to comply with these de- 
mands, for to do so without increasing the time required for the 
course would crowd out essential theoretical studies which the grad- 
uate is not likely to pursue unaided. Students generally expect to be 
finished, practical engineers when they graduate ; and many practi- 
tioners think that the schools should leave the graduates little to learn; 
but thoughtful engineers realize that the schools serve their highest 
purpose when the whole course is devoted to fundamental, theoretical 
studies and only enough practice is taught to illustrate principles. 
The training that results in the ability to grasp new ideas and in the 
habit of concentrating the mind upon any matter in interest is every- 
thing ; the knowledge of a few facts more or less is nothing. Every time 



HARRINGTON. 77 

a student leads his instructors to believe he has mastered a point when 
he has not, he cheats himself not out of so much learning but out of 
the ability to learn. He has handicapped himself permanently for the 
sake of an hour of ease, left himself a little nearer the position of the 
untaught laborer, and depreciated a little more his chance for success. 

As soon as he begins his professional work, the graduate com- 
monly renounces all thought of further study of principles and devotes 
his whole time to the study of practice. Theoretical studies are com- 
monly crowded out of his field of effort, and what he has not learned 
about them while in school generally remains unknown, therefore the 
technical courses offered nowadays are right in principle, since they 
are composed chiefly of fundamental subjects. 

Neither would it be wise for the schools to permit specialization 
much, if any, more than they do now. It is rare for a student to know 
positively what branch of engineering he will make his specialty. 
Civil, mechanical, electrical, mining, chemical, and metallurgical engi- 
neering, each has many subdivisions so important that few can prac- 
tice successfully in more than one or two of them; and it is difficult 
to know in advance of actual work for what branch one's taste or 
mental attainments best fit him, or in what line opportunities will occur ; 
therefore the education should be so broad that any specialty may be 
chosen and practiced with success. It is not uncommon to find great 
deviation from the intended course, men educated as civil engineers 
practicing in mechanical lines, and mechanical engineering graduates 
doing civil or electrical work. Even if the specialty practiced could 
be predetermined, the advantages of special preparation for it, within 
the limits of the four-year course, would be more than offset by the 
narrowing effect of crowding out other important subjects; and an 
error in choosing a specialty would probably result in mediocrity or 
failure, for great opportunities do not occur frequently; and if they 
cannot be seized promptly, they are generally lost. Therefore it is 
essential that your education be both broad and thorough, if the great- 
est success is to be obtained. 

There is frequently a tendency for students to regard lightly the 
professional ability of their instructors, to consider them theorists who 
lack practical knowledge and whose opinions, therefore, must be ac- 
cepted with caution. Once in a while there is reason for such an 
attitude, for the teaching branch of the profession is as subject to 
frailty as any other; but as a rule, these opinions spring from eager- 
ness for practical work and the habit of regarding the theoretical 
studies as a necessary evil, a groundwork, which it will not be essential 
to recur to, once active practice is begun. 



78 INDIVIDUAL ENGINEERING LIBRARIES. 

The true value of the scholastic work is not realized. It is fre- 
quent to hear objections on the part of the student to this or that 
study because it is not practical; because, so far as he can discern, it 
has no bearing upon designing and constructing engineering works, 
which in his opinion constitute the sum total of engineering. The 
study of English is especially subject to such criticism; just as though 
it were not necessary to employ the language understanding^ in the 
preparation of specifications, contracts, and advertisements; in instruc- 
tions to other^ engineers, to contractors, and to foremen; in technical 
papers and books ; in business correspondence, prospectuses, estimates, 
reports, and other business papers, as well as in the social relations. 
It is singular how prevalent is the idea that this, the instrument most 
commonly used of all, the one upon the quality of which all others 
depend, should be considered of little consequence. If you have neither 
knowledge to gain nor thought to convey, the study of English is evi- 
dently useless; but, in that event so is the study of every other subject. 

An engineer, of all men, requires such knowledge of the technique 
of the language that he can use it with accuracy and facility at all 
times. The bad construction of a sentence, even the erroneous use of 
a word or the misapplication of a comma, may result in costly litiga- 
tion and heavy loss; therefore the language merits far more study than 
the best technical courses provide. Even if you have excellent habits 
of speech and write good English readily, you will find, upon close 
study, that habit cannot be depended upon for satisfactory technical 
English. Close, careful study of diction and construction is essential 
in any case. The reading of well written technical works, of the 
English classics, and of the best current literature will aid greatly in 
the acquisition of correct habits; but this is not enough. Make tire 
study of the language habitual or you will find, when you have ad- 
vanced so far in your profession that you have engineering and legal 
papers to prepare, that you blunder grievously in your use of English. 
I know an engineer of unusual technical ability who has twice tried 
and twice failed to establish himself in independent practice and who 
still occupies a secondary position, largely, in my opinion, because he 
speaks and writes like an ignoramus. 

A knowledge of chemistry is likewise universally essential to the 
engineer, no matter what specialty he practice, for the relations of the 
constituents of the materials employed in construction are always im- 
portant and often vital ; and if they are not understood, the materials 
cannot be used intelligently. 

Foreign languages are not technical subjects; but they aid In keep- 
ing one thoroughly informed; for only the best things to be found in 



HARRINGTON. 79 

them are translated into English, and the publication of the translation 
is commonly far behind that of the original. 

Other subjects which do not deal directly with design and con- 
struction are required for similarly good reasons, which only active 
practice will make clear; therefore the student's objections to the 
subjects he is obliged to study are commonly illfounded, and if any 
of them are slighted during the course, in all probability it will be 
necessary to remedy the deficiency later. 

As soon as possible after graduation the embryonic engineer ob- 
tains a position and enters upon his professional career. If he has 
a choice, he generally takes the one which pays the most money imme- 
diately, though the ultimate compensation in any branch of engineer- 
ing is inversely proportional to the salary paid the beginner in it. If 
he has a well defined idea of what line of work he desires to follow, 
and if he has been fortunate enough to obtain a position in that line, 
he will probably employ all his energy to learn everything practical 
about his immediate tasks and whatever else comes directly under 
his observation. Often the work of more experienced men is studied 
zealously to the neglect of his own. He will, if he be energetic, drive 
with all his strength at the practical work and begin to calculate 
upon how soon his salary should be increased. If he is in the field, 
he sees skilled workmen paid much more than he is; and, because he 
knows the workmen have not his education and could not do his work, 
he exaggerates the value of his services and often begins to have a 
grievance. He does not realize that he knows very little about his 
broad line of work, while the skilled mechanic is well trained in his 
narrower line and, consequently, is better able to produce saleable 
results. 

Almost every young engineer is inclined to minimize the amount 
he has to learn and to seek to reach the top in a few short leaps. I 
remember one very bright young man who entered the detail drawing 
room of a bridge company immediately after graduation. Within a 
month he applied for transfer to the designing rooms, because, as he 
stated, he had learned all there was to be learned about detailing. He 
was transferred; and for some months, under the impression that he 
was estimating, he contentedly calculated the weight of steel on lists 
furnished him by the designers. He learned so fast, in his own opinion, 
that it is not surprising that in eight years he has attained a very 
mediocre position. Every man who, when he graduates, thinks he 
knows all but a little of the practical work, which he can learn in 
a few months, will make similar progress unless some shock opens his 
eves to the truth. 



80 INDIVIDUAL ENGINEERING LIBRARIES. 

Though this extremely comfortable idea of the graduate's equip- 
ment is not very general, the estimate the young man usually places 
upon the extent of his knowledge is almost universally far too high. 
It is common to assume that the education is finished, that the text 
books are properly put away like other childish things, and that it 
is only necessary to go forth, learn practice, and conquer. And since 
that course requires the least possible amount of energy, it is very 
frequently followed for years; so long that when the need for further 
study is finally realized, the mathematics and the elements of the 
theoretical work obtained in school are forgotten, and the task of 
reviewing them and acquiring further knowledge of them is so great 
that it appalls and discourages, and the man remains for the balance 
of his life a draftsman, an instrument man, or a secondary man of some 
other sort. He will attribute his own failure to the malice of enemies 
or the lack of powerful friends, and the success of his acquaintances 
to influence or luck. He will rarely admit, even to himself, that he 
failed because he deserved to fail, because he was unwilling to work for 
success. Is the picture distasteful? I hope so. But do not get the 
idea that it is exaggerated. I can call the names of many men whose 
advancement has been imperceptibly slow because they proceeded 
along such lines, and every engineer has watched the course of many 
who have been left behind because they would do only the work 
given them to do and would set and perform no tasks for themselves. 
And I have known many ethers who have gone forward rapidly because 
they think, read, and study continuously. 

There are, of course, differences in the amounts and kinds of 
ability with which nature has endowed men, and it is very easy to 
attribute your own failure or another man's success to these qualities 
over which the individual has no control, but I firmly believe that by 
far the larger influence is common industry, or the lack of it. And 
I assure you it requires much more energy to think out a course of 
study and pursue it than it does to perform your daily task well. 
Energy is necessary to perform manual labor or routine mental labor, 
but infinitely more is required to do original work or to pursue a 
course which is not obligatory and which will result in no immediate 
benefit. It is the custom of mankind to forfeit large but long deferred 
benefits for the sake of small immediate ones. 

When a young man takes up his first work, he gives his best 
thought, as he should, to learning to perform the tasks which will 
provide his living; and if he has not already a bit of a library and the 
habit of using it and increasing it, that is about all he will do except 
to satisfy his desire for recreation and for social pleasures. He has 



HARRINGTON. 81 

little immediate use for his books and he forgets them and their con- 
tents. His duties do not require knowledge of law or organization or 
management or business or finance. These are not, he concludes, 
engineering subjects, and, consequently, can be of no interest to him; 
therefore, he gives them little or no thought. In the course of two 
or three years, if he has been industrious and thoughtful in his daily 
work, he will be given tasks which make greater demands upon his 
technical knowledge. Then he must go back to his text books and 
review them before he can with assurance do the work properly. This 
takes time, for he has forgotten much, and, in order to escape criticism 
for lack of facility, he will probably try short cuts or guess work and 
fail. This is the usual course, because men employed by large corpora- 
tions generally acquire such extreme respect for the organization and 
for the opinions of their official superiors that they will adopt almost 
any means to avoid severe criticism. In the bridge shops, for instance, 
there is commonly a very un-American fear of "The Boss," which 
arises partly from the superior knowledge and position of the official 
and partly from the possibility of criticism for ignorance or, more 
commonly, for lack of industry and attention to business. It is de 
plorable but undeniable that technically educated men have to be 
watched and urged, much as the lower orders of workmen do. But 
haste due to fear of criticism and the laziness which prevents study 
frequently cause grievous blunders. False pride which prevents con- 
fession of ignorance is also a fruitful source of error. It takes courage 
and honesty to say, 'T do not know," but courage and honesty are 
among the essential characteristics of a successful engineer. 

I have said before that the engineering graduate is rarely called 
upon in the earlier stages of his professional work to use much of 
his technical information ; and that, in consequence, he forgets it. 
This is especially true of those who take up field work. Their knowl- 
edge of instrument work is brought into immediate service, but in a 
very short time mechanics, the basis of all designing, will have become 
but a name. One of my acquaintances, who has spent in the field the 
most of his twelve ^years since graduation, recently told me that he 
•was re-reading his mechanics and was astonished to find how little 
he knew of what was once thoroughly familiar to him. Undoubtedly 
he has learned much in field work, but he has actually lost ground in 
some lines and grown narrow. That is the usual course and the one 
certain to result in the man becoming a cog in the wheel and a little 
one at that. Many a technical man calls himself a bridge engineer 
and looks upon himself as a specialist who is cheated out of his dues; 
yet is versed in only one narrow branch of bridge work, such as shop 
drafting, inspection, or estimating. He probably knows little or 



82 INDIVIDUAL ENGINEERING LIBRARIES. 

nothing of shop work or erection or management or business or the 
higher technique of designing; yet he would bristle with indignation 
if you were to tell him he is narrow and that he does not know his 
business. He has steadily followed a single phase of a single branch 
of a single division of engineering, because up to a certain point he 
could increase his salary most rapidly by so doing. He became pro- 
ficient in his narrow line of work, and he refused to take up other 
lines because he knew less about them and could earn less in them. 
And so he reached a certain position and remained there because his 
foundation was too narrow. 

It is urgently necessary that the recent engineering graduate 
shall at once take steps to master thoroughly every phase of the 
specialty he means to follow, including many allied technical branches, 
and, at the same time, to broaden his view by studying other and 
more remote lines. There is so much to read and study, so many lines 
to pursue, that, unless he have the wisdom and foresight to work 
according to some plan, confusion and weakness will result. Knowl- 
edge is of value only as it is of use, and if it lack cohesion, is not 
gathered and arranged in the mind according to some system, it is 
almost useless. Many a man reminds me of my first shot gun. It 
made a big noise and kicked vigorously; whenever it went off you 
felt sure the game must come down; but it scattered so badly that 
it was rather more apt to miss than to hit. The shot would strike 
all around the bird, which would often get off unhurt. Thus many 
a man shoots all around the mark but cannot concentrate his fire so 
it will tell. 

Notwithstanding the necessary limitations of the technical course, 
if the student will do his part, he will, when he graduates, have the 
best equipment obtainable in the time employed. But he who per- 
forms his daily task and passes his examinations so well that he gets 
fair grades and in the end receives his degree, has not necessarily done 
his part. Good consistent work is much, but it is not all; in fact, it is 
only what the university demands in set terms. It obtains the credits 
and the degree, just as the ordinary laborer earns his daily wage; 
and it is little more likely to make the student an eminent engineer 
than the daily wage is likely to make the laborer a millionaire. Initia- 
tive and untiring energy to plan and carry out work which is not com- 
pulsory are even more essential and effective during the college course 
than they are at the height of the professional career. It is true that 
one who is only an ordinary student may awaken when he takes up 
his professional work and set for himself a pace which will enable 
him to reach the top; but as a rule he will never realize that he is 
not doing his best. He won his degree without great effort; and in 



HARRINGTON. 83 

his opinion, it necessarily follows that success must come naturally 
and easily. After a while when it is too late, he finds it does not; then 
some one else or his luck is to blame, never himself. As a rule, it is 
easier to reform a drunkard than a drone or an indifferent man. 

The graduate should understand that in spite of splendid equip- 
ment, able instructors, and rigorous discipline, the technical school 
does not turn him out a finished engineer, but leaves him to acquire 
the major part of the necessary technical knowledge after he has gone 
out into the world. It has given him methods of study, trained him 
to grasp readily the arguments of able writers, taught him the mathe- 
matics he needs, some foreign languages and something of his own, 
and the elements of some natural sciences, and it has made a begin- 
ning upon his technical education; but if he stops there, failure is 
certainly his portion. The school has accomplished its purpose, train- 
ed him mentally, but he must yet broaden and deepen his knowledge 
of theory, as well as learn the practical phases of his professional work. 
He must work alone. With rare exception his employers have neither 
the time nor the inclination to interest themselves in any portion of his 
life except that for which they pay. Occasionally he may be urged to 
exert himself to learn more about the work he is employed to do, but 
he must, of his own volition, plan and carry out the study which is 
essential to success. 

The recent engineering graduate is not fitted to do much com- 
mercial work, and employers are loath to spend the time and patience 
necessary to direct him and to correct his errors. No one really 
wants to employ him, but he will be given place and work in the 
hope that ultimately he will become proficient and then repay in 
profitable service the time and effort spent upon him in the beginning. 
If he be energetic, he will be encouraged to learn the things which 
will make his services more valuable immediately, the practical phases 
of his work. But what about the things which count so much toward 
his ultimate success, yet have no bearing upon the work in hand? 
Will they be pointed out to him ? Will he be urged to study more deep- 
ly the courses he pursued while in school and to take up the study of 
the collateral subjects which have a bearing upon the work he will 
be called upon to do five or ten years hence? Yes, in about one case 
in a hundred. Surely not much more frequently. He will generally 
be left to his own devices except in so far as he can be made more 
useful now or in the very near future. In many large establishments 
even that much pressure is not brought to bear, but he is left to 
succeed or fail as he will. If he earn his salary and if work should 
be plentiful, he will be retained; but much personal effort to aid the 
novice is considered an immediate loss, for the average man will move 



84 INDIVIDUAL ENGINEERING LIBRARIES. 

on and deliver to another employer the benefit of such instruction as 
soon as he can obtain more money by doing so. Some of our larger 
manufacturers, it is true, seek recent graduates, bind them to a specific 
term of service, and maintain a course of instruction for them. In 
these cases the better men are selected for advancement in the com- 
pany's service while the less competent or less energetic are retained 
as a sort of higher grade mechanic. I know one man who has been 
making shop drawings of plate girders for more than twenty years, 
for a mechanic's pay. 

Even when employers or officers of corporations take a personal 
interest in the recent graduate and endeavor to advise him, they fre- 
quently find the efifort wasted, if not offensive. Too many young men 
resent the advice to continue study as a reflection upon their intelli- 
gence and their equipment of learning. Sometimes egotism carries 
them so far that they think the older man is jealous of their superior 
knowledge; and the lofty manner in which they sometimes criticise 
the work of older men is often decided!;, amusing. I well remem- 
ber the uncomplimentary remarks two young graduates made about 
an eminent mechanical engineer and his design of a clam-shell bucket, 
though they did not understand even the operation of the machine. 

Compare these conditions with those which obtain before gradua- 
tion. The Faculty not only urge the student to employ his best efforts 
and suggest better methods of study, but substantially compel him to 
acquire definite amounts of valuable information in a given time. He 
is not obliged to take the initiative. The courses are mapped out for 
him in detail ; even the daily task is set ; and if the ability or the energy 
to grasp any portion of the subject be lacking, the instructor not only 
stands ready and willing to aid when called upon, but seeks the oppor- 
tunity to help. The student has constantly in view definite results to 
be attained in given periods; such as the completion, first, of the sub- 
jects immediately in hand and, finally, of the whole course, the receipt 
of a degree, and the entering upon a career which hope and imagina- 
tion make brilliant. Every aid and incentive to study are offered. 
Pride in his own strength and in his ability to achieve, and the hope 
and encouragement of his family, his friends, and his instructors, urge 
him forward. The way is made easy, bright, and pleasant. He has 
only to follow the course laid down and honor and success are his. 

Thus the student is aided and advised at every step, while the 
graduate must map out his own course and pursue it with energy and 
steady purpose, if he is to win. The transition is abrupt, the test 
severe; and it is little wonder that so many fail; but the remedy lies 
altogether with the student. He must take the initiative and so lay 
his plans and conduct his work that when he graduates there will be 



HARRINGTON. 85 

only a modification, not an interruption, in his course of study. He 
must prepare himself ag^ainst the day of trial which is certainly com- 
ing, and take steps to supplement the university work. 

Many of you, no doubt, consider yourselves hard worked to 
satisfy the Faculty's requirements; but, except in the rare case when 
lack of health and strength interferes, you will find that a reasonable 
amount of collateral work is not only pleasant and profitable, but 
that it actually lightens the required work by affording a broader and 
clearer comprehension of it. And you have time for it. If you ever 
reach a high executive position, you will find that instead of taking 
your pleasure and recreation very much at will, as you do now, you 
will make them a part of a schedule which accounts for almost every 
minute of your time. You will often excuse yourself, instead of ceas- 
ing work, when a friend drops in for a social chat; and you will 
forego many a ball or dinner or theater party or other pleasure for 
the sake of your work or study. In time you will come to smile with 
amusement when you recall how you thought you were busy when in 
school. The student is father of the practitioner, and I know that 
very few young engineers understand how to concentrate their thought 
upon what they are doing so that only imperative matters will in- 
terrupt them. And still fewer take such a comprehensive view of their 
work that the little, less important features of a task are not for- 
gotten or neglected. Therefore, I fear that the student who thinks he 
is hafd worked has much to learn about methods of study. 

Primarily, you must do the prescribed work with all your energy 
and ability, set your own pace in it rather than be driven or coaxed 
along, and bring yourself to understand that the training you are re- 
ceiving and the habits you are acquiring now are of the utmost im- 
portance to you throughout your professional career. If it be pos- 
sible to do more work than has been prescribed (and almost every 
earnest, energetic student will find it so) choose the work which you 
prefer or think most beneficial, seek your instructors' advice regarding 
it, and then do all of it you can without detriment to the prescribed 
courses. Purchase other books which cover the same ground as the 
text-books employed. They will often present the matter in different 
lights and actually reduce the amount of work required to grasp the 
subject. I recall that an old work on analytical geometry, which treats 
the problems graphically, greatly aided me to understand the alge- 
braic treatment of the prescribed text book; and Prof. Merriman's 
books on bridges frequently made Johnson's clearer. Every book con- 
tains important matter which is not to be found in other works that 
treat the same subject. Often different methods are presented ; and at 
the least, the second reading serves by repetition to fix the matter 



86 INDIVIDUAL ENGINEERING LIBRARIES. 

more firmly in the mind. The difference between Hke works in matter 
and method of presentation strengthen by bringing the judgment into 
play and training it, and by developing the student's habit of independ- 
ent thought. 

Again, to read in the technical journals and the proceedings of 
the engineering societies descriptions of such works as those of which 
the text-book or lectures treat, greatly aids in understanding the sub- 
ject and in fixing it in the mind, and, at the same time, affords a 
glimpse of the connection between theory and practice. The reading 
of technical papers also teaches you where to find data and how to 
present them, and acquaints you with what is going on in the world. 
There is something new in every issue, something to excite your 
curiosity and stimulate your mind. 

If the time and energy be available, it is very advantageous to 
purchase and read books relating to allied subjects which the pre- 
scribed course does not include. For instance, a thorough course in 
dynamo-electric machinery or in thermodynamics' or in the metallurgy 
of iron and steel may be of great service to a civil engineer; and a 
course in architectural engineering, in mill building construction, or 
in masonry design is of the highest importance to a mechanical en- 
gineer. I recall a large rail mill roof designed by an able mechanical 
engineer, which had only itself and the wind and snow to carry, yet 
was strong enough to support a railway train as well. And a civil 
engineer's work in mechanical lines is often painfully crude. Yet the 
various branches of engineering frequently overlap; and any engineer 
should be prepared to do reasonably well work in other lines which 
are closely allied to his specialty. If the fundamental knowledge of 
these allied subjects can be obtained in course without interference 
with the regular work, so much the better, but sooner or later it musi 
be obtained. 

Yet the great value of the purchase and perusal of the technical 
periodicals and other than the required text books lies in beginning 
a library and in establishing habits of independent thought and 
study while still in position to obtain friendly aid and advice from 
the Faculty. The files of the technical periodicals form a very import- 
ant part of every engineer's library. Even the six or eight volumes 
of any good engineering paper which the student should accumulate 
afford many descriptions and illustrations of engineering works and 
of the methods of designing and constructing them. But the back 
numbers are difficult to obtain ; and if the graduate does not have 
them, he is not likely to buy them, and, consequently, will miss their 
aid in solving his first practical problems. Without them his knowl- 



HARRINGTON. 87 

edge of what has been done in the engineering world will not extend 
much back of the day he began work in his first position. 

It is true that there are one or two copies of each of the best 
technical journals in the school's library and that they can be read, 
even though they are not purchased. But they will not be read. How 
many of you read thoroughly even a part of one journal? How many 
read none at all? And if you should read them, that would not serve 
the purpose, for they and the technical society transactions consti- 
tute a large share of every engineer's library, and you should have 
them for reference. 

After graduation many a young engineer would take up the study 
of subjects which bear upon his work but which he did not study in 
school, if he knew what books to buy. But, as a student, he has not 
learned to select books, for the text books have always been specified, 
and he knows little or nothing about the respective merits of others. 
And rather than waste his money on ill selections, he commonly makes 
the greatest of all errors by purchasing none at all. 

It is difficult to estimate the ultimate value of a dozen books and 
a single engineering paper purchased and read during the course of 
study. The technical knowledge is increased, the habit of independent 
thought and methods of independent study are established, additional 
books are made familiar and available for reference, and the nucleus 
of a library is formed. The graduate has already begun his pro- 
fessional work; the transition from school to the office, shop, or field is 
made without danger that he will consider his education completed 
and that he will, in consequence, cease to study and grow. The size 
of this beginning of a library is of infinitely less importance than the 
habits formed in collecting it. The little group of books, if he carry 
them with him, will constantly strengthen and support him in his 
work and keep ever present in his mind the need for more books and 
further study. 

Many a student, instead of taking pride in the growing row of 
books on his shelf, sells even his text books as soon as he has received 
his credits in the subjects of which they treat. He burns his bridges 
behind him and makes certain that whatever he has not learned from 
his books will remain unknown, whatever was not clear will remain 
obscure, whatever he forgets will remain forgotten. When, in his 
later work, either before or after graduation, his memory needs re- 
freshing or a point puzzles him, he cannot turn to the familiar pages 
and satisfy his needs. Instead, in fear and trembling he puts on a 
bold face and endeavors to convince his instructors or employers that 
he knows what he does not know. If he succeed, he has cheated both 
himself and them and has acquired a dishonest habit. If he fail, anc^ 



88 INDIVIDUAL ENGINEERING LIBRARIES. 

he generally does, though he may not know it, he not only acquires 
the dishonest habit and cheats himself, but he fails in his work and 
falls behind in the race. No other books will ever supply the desired 
information so readily as those he pored over in school. Even if the 
student has not the means or the foresight to begin his professional 
library "by purchasing additional books, the required text books, if 
retained, form a valuable working nucleus. When the course is com- 
pleted the days of a text book's usefulness instead of being over are 
only begun ; and the man who sells his as soon as he can is already 
on the high road to failure. 

It is frequently stated, sometimes by instructors, that the average 
student cannot afford to buy more books than are absolutely essential 
to the pursuit of the prescribed studies ; but such a view is exceedingly 
narrow. Expenses vary greatly with the situation of the institution, 
the tuition charged, and the student's tastes, habits, and supply of 
funds; but four hundred dollars a year is probably a low estimate of 
the average annual expenditure, even in our state universities where 
the tuition is little or nothing. An increase of five per cent, or about 
twenty dollars per annum, spent for a good technical journal and for 
well selected engineering books will place within the student's reach 
the means for doubling his fund of technical knowledge. And what 
can be said of the economy of spending a dollar for half a loaf when 
a dollar and five cents would buy a whole one! I feel sure that the 
cases are few in which the lack is not the money to buy books but 
the intelligence to appreciate their value and the energy to master 
their contents. 

Consult your instructors regarding the best books in each line 
and make memoranda of their recommendations. Likewise consult 
instructors in other lines of which you would like a knowledge and 
make lists of the books they advise and the order in which such books 
should be studied. Get the catalogues of the principal publishers; 
they may be had for the asking; and see for yourselves what is avail- 
able. Study well the reviews of new books as they appear in the 
technical papers. Then buy as many as you can find time to master 
without neglecting your regular studies. If it be only one each term, 
that is much; if two, that is much more. And remember that the 
mere possession of the book does not serve the purpose. It is like 
your mind, valuable directly in proportion to the use you make of it. 
There is no known method by which a knowledge of the contents of a 
book may be acquired without reading and study, though the contrary 
idea seems to be prevalent. Mere possession or laying on of hands 
will not suffice. 



HARRINGTON. 89 

I hear many of you say you have no time for extra work, that 
your instructors demand it all and more. But how many of you do 
not absolutely waste a half hour a day? I do not mean how many 
withhold that much time from your studies and devote it to social 
duties or pleasures, to recreation, or to exercise, all of which are es- 
sential to right living; but absolutely waste it, doing nothing which 
affords either pleasure or profit. Yet a half hour a day devoted to 
books will enable you to read several ordinary volumes each term. 
And the value of so much work, in the knowledge obtained and the 
habits and training acquired, is almost incalculable. You have so 
much to read, there are so many subjects just touched upon or not 
included at all in your course, that the earlier you begin ycv.r inde- 
pendent work the better. If you wait till you have nothing eLe to do, 
you will never begin. You must make room for such work. Ycu will 
find that doing only a little regularly will strengthen you and will 
rapidly increase your capacity for work, and you will be astonished 
to see how much a half hour a day well employed will accomplish. 

The majority of engineering students have not found it possible 
to pursue wholly or in part an academic course, hence it is very im- 
portant that they read as much as possible in non-technical lines. And 
much valuable knowledge and training in the humanities, in the lan- 
guages, and in sociology and political economy and finance may be 
gained while reading for recreation. 

In your reading while in school do not reach out too eagerly after 
the practical phases of your subjects. Remember that the theory is 
the more difficult part to obtain unaided and that after graduation you 
will be obliged to make special effort to gain further knowledge of it, 
while you will necessarily learn much of practice in the ordinary 
course of your work. Seek to establish the principles which form the 
basis of your future tasks as thoroughly as possible in your mind and 
to acquire all the knowledge of them your time and strength will per- 
mit. Build your foundations substantially, and the superstructure 
will be much more certain to serve its purpose. 

The discussion of technical problems in the undergraduate en- 
gineering societies is a very effective means of developing sound- meth- 
ods, for it enforces precise and comprehensive thinking and neces- 
sitates the reading of the technical papers and other books than those 
required for class use. No one wishes to advance theories or make 
statements which are not supported by facts or sound logic, therefore 
earnest thought commonly precedes discussion or argument. 

Immediately after graduation review thoroughly all your text 
books that bear upon your work. Then map out a course of technical 
study, select and purchase the books needed for it, and, if possible, 



90 INDIVIDUAL ENGINEERING LIBRARIES. 

devote to it a certain amount of time each day. You will be astonished 
to find that with an hour a day well applied you will cover more 
ground than you did with all your time while in school, for you 
acquire better methods of study and greater mental grasp with the 
passage of years. 

At the same time, subscribe for at least one good engineering 
weekly and read it thoroughly. For a few years the whole of it should 
retain your interest, because you are still more or less in search of your 
place in the world, and therefore you should be familiar with many 
lines of work. A monthly, too, which offers a more general view of 
the entire field of engineering is worth your while, for it tends to 
broaden and to attract attention to lines which may have permanent 
interest. Such magazines frequently contain valuable matter relating 
to shop management and accounting that is hard to find elsewhere. 
In course of time it is well to increase the number of technical papers 
and to restrict the reading more closely to the subjects of your special 
interest, but too early specialization is narrowing and harmful. 

As soon as you have read the principal books relating to your 
particular subjects, take up other and more remotely related lines, but 
always follow a plan; for variety without it will lead to weakness. 
At the same time the plan should be subject to whatever alterations 
more mature judgment dictates. Avoid reading whatever comes to 
hand. No knowledge is worthless ; but a small fund of well ordered 
information is much more serviceable than a larger amount of hap- 
hazard, ill-rounded, unrelated knowledge. It is difficult, but essential 
to the highest success, to be both broad and thorough, "to know some- 
thing of everything and everything of something." 

Do not read superficially nor accept all you read as the truth, 
solely because some writer has had the courage to put the matter into 
print. Engineers are not agreed upon all points, and many state- 
ments which are made as though they were generally accepted are 
open to question, sometimes in error. They must bear the test of 
reason. If they do not, there is something the matter with them or 
with your reasoning, and it is well to determine positively which is at 
fault. 

Read descriptions of designs and of methods of construction, in 
order that you may have ready for use the results of other men's 
thought and experience. You should profit by their errors ; and fre- 
quently a new application of a method or a slight improvement upon 
it will effect much. Each generation of engineers must begin where 
the preceding left off, if we are to make progress. Yet each year en- 
gineers waste much labor by re-inventing and re-devising what has al- 
ready been well done; and much money is squandered in repeating er- 



HARRINGTON. 91 

rors which should have taught a lesson, all through lack of familiarity 
with technical literature, or the lack of a library. Remember that 
progress is made by small increments and with much stumbling and 
many falls, rather than by spectacular leaps and bounds. Wonders 
are rarely found outside the columns of our sensation loving news- 
papers. And if you want to make all your strength and ability ef- 
fective, do not ignore what other men have done, but employ their 
results honestly and freely as a basis for your own work. Acquire 
with the utmost dispatch and wuth much financial sacrifice, if need 
be, a well selected and comprehensive reference library. Obtain at 
least one good book upon each subject as early as possible; and buy 
the back numbers of the principal engineering journals and technical 
society transactions for a period of ten years or so previous to your 
graduation. You must be able to turn at need to the records of what 
has been done as well as to what other engineers are now doing, if you 
would save yourself labor and error. The field is not virgin and you 
are not pioneers. At the same time you must neither become a slave 
to precedent nor so fear falling into the errors of others that you fail 
to act on your own initiative. Only those who do nothing never make 
mistakes. 

Immediately after graduation join the principal technical society 
in your own line, read the papers and discussions, and attend the 
meetings if possible. And as fast as your years and experience permit, 
move on to the higher grades of membership. This identifies you 
with your profession, places at your disposal the most advanced pro- 
fessional thought, acquaints you with the leaders among your pro- 
fessional brethren, and as soon as you are prepared to take part in the 
discussions, supplies the means for recording your own thought and 
aids you in establishing your own fame. 

Read from the beginning all you can find relating to the lives and 
works of famous engineers. There is no greater source of inspiration, 
no more certain method of obtaining a well balanced understanding 
of the whole field of engineering, no surer way of gaining a knowledge 
of what qualities in men make for success. Much encouragement will be 
drawn from this source, and many a pitfall avoided. 

Another neglected means of assistance is the miscellaneous papers 
prepared by professional men for the purpose of aiding the younger 
men to start aright and to pursue the best course. Addresses to grad- 
uating classes and papers relating to special engineering subjects fre- 
quently contain many valuable suggestions. Sometimes they are made 
available by publication in pamphlet form, in the technical press, or 
in book form. Dr. Humphreys, President of Stevens Institute of 
Technology, has published two volumes of papers written by him- 



92 INDIVIDUAL ENGINEERING LIBRARIES. 

self and other prominent practitioners, many papers by Dr. Waddell 
and others have been presented in pamphlet form; and the engineering 
journals occasionally publish the important portions of able addresses 
and papers. 

The public libraries in our larger cities are of material service in 
both technical and cultural lines. Their chief value lies in enabling 
you to examine books before purchasing them and in the reference 
books they possess. But it is well to remember that any book which 
is worth reading should be purchased, in order that it may be referred 
to or read again at pleasure; for no one can remember all he reads. 

Supplernenting the reading along purely technical lines, it is well 
to take up at a comparatively early period the sounder books relating 
to methods of accounting, shop and railway management, banking and 
finance, the laws of contracts, and the laws governing construction. 
A knowledge of all these subjects is absolutely essential to the engineer 
who reaches the top. Let me cite xDne or two cases in illustration. 
My firm was recently called upon to examine an important bridge, to 
report upon its condition, and to advise what would be the cost of a 
new single-track structure, the cost of a double-track structure, and the 
cost of a single-track superstructure supported on piers which would 
ultimately carry another single-track superstructure. The present 
traffic requires but a single-track, therefore it was also necessary to 
advise the client how soon the traffic must be sufficient to make a 
double-track structure necessary, in order to warrant the higher present 
cost of the second and third types of bridge, and how much of the cost 
in each case would be chargeable to maintenance and how much to 
improvements. 

Some years since a railroad company by which I was employed 
was obliged to renew the superstructures of two bridges over the Ohio 
River. Navigation interests demanded wider channels than the old 
bridges provided; and before the War Department would grant per- 
mission to build new superstructures on the old piers, without increase 
of span length, it was necessary for me to prepare a statement showing 
what present payment the United States must make in order to com- 
pensate the railroad company for the increase in first cost of the 
larger span in one bridge and of a cantilever structure in the other, 
and for the increase in the cost of maintaining, and ultimately of re- 
newing, the more expensive structures. 

Such statements as these require for their preparation a sound 
knowledge of accounting, of funding, and of maintenance charges. 
Yet they are less complicated than many statements the engineers for 
manufacturers find it necessary to make. 



HARRINGTON. 93 

The knowledge gained by all the reading we have considered is 
rendered much more available if the library be well indexed. There 
is a general index of engineering literature which should be purchased 
early; an excellent index of current technical periodicals appears in the 
Proceedings of the American Society of Civil Engineers; and the en- 
gineering papers provide an index for each volume; but it is advan- 
tageous for every engineer to make a special index of his own library, 
including everything but the handbooks ; for there are many valuable 
pamphlets and documents which are not mentioned in any published 
index; and the making of an index not only classifies one's knowledge 
and saves much valuable time, but it teaches the method and the sys- 
tem which govern in all large organizations. Indexing is something 
of an art and merits careful study, therefore I would call attention to 
two good articles on the subject which are to be found in the earlier 
1907 numbers of Technical Literature. As you reach a higher pro- 
fessional position, the increase in the size and scope of your library and 
the greater demands upon your time make it essential for you to leave 
the indexing to assistants; but you will always find it advantageous to 
keep in close touch with the work. 

It is advisable to go through your library from time to time and 
weed out antiquated material. Do not let the possession of an old 
edition of a book keep you from purchasing a more recent one, but 
make sure that the new edition is altered in more than the title; for 
publishers often make new editions on account of very trivial revisions. 
Watch the reviews for criticisms of new books and buy promptly what- 
ever seems valuable to you. The profession is making rapid progress, 
and books get out of date very quickly ; therefore you must never cease 
to purchase new books, if your library is to keep pace with current 
practice. Collect the bulletins of the Geological Survey and the Bureau 
of Forestry, the Watertown Arsenal Reports, the Reports of the Chief 
of Engineers of the Army, and other government documents. They 
frequently contain much valuable information, and they may be had 
for the asking. 

One reason why young engineers do not acquire a library is be- 
cause technical books are expensive. But no condemnation can be 
too severe of an economy which has so large an influence against both 
immediate and ultimate success. Five hundred dollars will buy more 
technical books and periodicals than are possessed by most engineers 
who have been out of school from eight to ten years ; in fact I doubt 
that the average young man spends thirty dollars a year for such pur- 
chases. I have known many an engineer who carried all his books 
about in his trunk and had plenty of room left for his clothes. How 
much would the knowledge gained from the study of books costing 



94 INDIVIDUAL ENGINEERING LIBRARIES. 

one hundred dollars per annum increase the earning power of any 
young engineer? It will vary with the man and with his opportunities, 
but two or three times one hundred dollars a year is an absurdly low 
estimate for the earlier years, and ultimately the amount is not to be 
computed. 

But I fear that in most instances economy is but a cloak for the 
true reason, viz., that the young man lacks the wisdom and the energy 
to continue to study. He thinks vaguely that in some easy way he 
will learn as he works for his living, that knowledge and position will 
come to him as an inheritance. They will not come so, but disappoint- 
ment will, with absolute certainty. 

The field of engineering has become so broad, and competition so 
severe, that no one can practice in many lines, as was customary 
twenty-five or thirty years since. The highest success is to be won 
only by making a specialty of one or two of the divisions of one branch 
of engineering. But the foundation should be broad. The young en- 
gineer should read one or two of the books relating to each subject, 
and, when he has chosen his specialty, buy and read all the other books 
which deal directly with his work. As before pointed out, if two or 
more books cover the same ground, each will present the points in some 
different way which improves the understanding of them and fixes 
them more firmly in the mind. But two books never cover precisely 
the same ground. Each lays special emphasis on one phase of the sub- 
ject and presents it in a superior manner. Take bridges for instance. 
If you have studied Johnson, you will find in DuBois a superior chap- 
ter-on erection; in Merriman a superior treatment of arches, suspen- 
sion bridges, movable bridges, and cantilever structures ; and in Burr a 
superior mathematical treatment of the elastic theory. Johnson, on 
the other hand, has superior chapters on mill building construction and 
upon the aesthetics of design. Again, Howe's book on arches, Wright's 
books on draw bridges, and Ketchum's books on mill buildings and 
on bins, specialize in those subjects and treat them much more fully 
than do the four broad texts first mentioned. You have not covered 
the general field properly until you have read these four principal 
books, and you have not covered. the subjects of bridge superstructure 
design, and of steel building design which is almost inseparable from 
it, until you have' studied the many special books dealing with par- 
ticular branches of it; and, if you are taking up bridge work as a 
specialty, you have only begun when you have mastered these. You 
must yet study the metallurgy of iron and steel and the various other 
alloys of iron, the chemistry of paint, methods of fabrication, methods 
of testing and inspecting, the design and construction of foundations 
by the pneumatic, open dredging, and other processes, the construe- 



HARRINGTON. 95 

tion of reinforced concrete bridges and floors, paving, lighting, the 
operation of signals, the various prime movers used to operate move- 
able bridges, shore protection, field work in connection with bridge 
construction, piles and pile driving, timber trestles, and creosoting and 
other methods of timber treatment. Will a thorough study of all these 
subjects make you a bridge engineer? Not at all. They constitute 
only the strictly technical phases of the subject. Specifications and 
contracts, organization and management of manufacturing plants and 
construction forces, business systems, contracting, accounting, and 
finance, are all subjects which the bridge engineer must study. In 
addition, if an engineer is to attain the highest professional position, 
he must be a man among men, must be a well read, cultured gentle- 
man, able to meet on their own ground men in business and in other 
professions, and to make himself a power among them. 

A similar broad and thorough preparation is essential for the prac- 
tice of any other specialty. The engineer who turns his attention to 
the sale of machinery, electrical apparatus, steel work, or other en- 
gineering materials and equipment, must have a detailed and accurate 
technical knowledge of his specialty and a broad view of the general 
field, must know much of business and finance, and must have all the 
culture, tact, and finesse of a diplomat as well. The large and growing 
field of technical journalism demands men of the highest calibre, men 
who are sound in their fundamental knowledge of many lines and so 
familiar with good practice that they may write with authority on 
many very different subjects. We have only to look over the back 
numbers of the technical papers to see what advances in this branch 
of the engineering profession have been made in a few years ; while 
acquaintance with any good paper will show that the technical journ- 
alist must have an exceedingly broad view of a large field and yet must 
be exceptionally sound, if the pitfalls of hastily written leaders and 
false theory are to be avoided. 

Substantially all the officers of many of the large companies en- 
gaged in manufacturing, construction, and transportation have been 
chosen from the engineering staff ; and the time is not far distant when 
railroading, mining, all mechanical lines of business, and all construc- 
tion work will be in the hands of the technically educated engineer. 
The material progress of the world is dependent upon him. It is true 
that he is not sufficient unto himself. He is a practical man and em- 
ploys in his work whatever knowledge and material he can obtain from 
others. He uses freely the discoveries of the mathematician, the chem- 
ist, and the physicist ; the material resources of the earth ; and the 
fruits of the skill and labor of the farmer, the artisan, and the ordinary 



96 INDIVIDUAL ENGINEERING LIBRARIES. 

workman. But he is chiefly responsible for the material progress and 
for much of the intellectual progress of the human race. 

The field is broad, the compensation is large, and the possibilities 
are unlimited. Will you take advantage of them? Will you employ 
all your strength, all your energy, all your ability to meet every re- 
quirement for the highest order of success? Or do you prefer a life 
of ease and obscurity? It is for you to determine. Your fate is in 
vour own hands. 



THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF THE TECHNICAL PRESS 

WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO ENGINEERING 

NEWS. 

By 

Harwood Frost, B. A. Sc. 

Some readers may claim, perhaps with a certain amount of jus- 
tice, that this paper is in the nature of an advertisement for an en- 
gineering journal, as its author was the Secretary of Engineering News : 
nevertheless all the statements in it are correct, and the advice which 
it offers engineering students is good and sound. The Editors can 
do nothing but say ''amen" to Mr. Frost's remarks and express the 
hope that their readers may profit by his words of wisdom. 

As is evidenced by the numerous asterisks employed, a large por- 
tion of the address has been omitted. This does not mean that the 
deleted parts are in any way objectionable, but simply that they are 
not pertinent to the objects of this compilation of addresses. 

Mr. Frost was born at Smith's Falls, Canada, in 1872, and re- 
ceived his early education there and at Plainfield, N. J- In 1893 he 
graduated at Lehigh University with the degree of M. E., and in 1895 he 
took at McGill University the degree of B. A. Sc. 

He began his professional practice at Smith's Falls with the Frost 
and Wood Manufacturers of Agricultural Implements, and in 1899 he 
went to Europe, where he represented that firm from 1901 to 1904. 

From 1905 to 1910 he was with Engineering News, at New York 
City, and in 1911 he purchased an interest in the Brown Portable Ele- 
vator Company and became President thereof. 

Mr. Frost is the author of a number of valuable papers and of two 
books, "The Art of Roadmaking" published in 1910 by the Engineering 
News Publishing Co., and ''Good Engineering Literature," published by 
himself in 1911. This last work is one that every ambitious student of 
engineering should read and study. 

Editors. 



91 



THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF THE TECHNICAL PRESS. 

By 
Harwood Frost, B. A. Sc. 

This subject is one of great importance to every engineering stu- 
dent and every practicing engineer. It is a subject with which the 
staff of every high-class engineering journal is brought into close touch 
and it is in connection with this that I wish to address you, in an effort 
to explain something of the many forms of engineering literature, of 
its production, and of its educational value and its necessity in the 
work of the engineer. 

Under the general title of "The Technical Press" may be included, 
not only periodic literature, but also books, trade publications of a cer- 
tain kind, and pamphlets, bulletins, and proceedings issued by engineer- 
ing societies, by the government departments, and by individuals. The 
term is a broad one; too broad, in fact, to discuss satisfactorily on 
this occasion, hence I shall confine myself to technical books and peri- 
odicals. The other elements of the technical press, have, in many 
cases, a considerable educational value, but trade publications and gov- 
ernment bulletins can generally be obtained for the asking, or for a 
few cents, and are not looked on with the same respect as the period- 
ical or book for which you have paid out several dollars of your hard- 
earned cash. This is the class of literature with which you will be 
brought in close contact throughout your professional career, and to 
get the best value for your money, there is need of careful considera- 
tion in your purchases. 

The "Technical Press," — using the term to represent book and 
periodic literature — must be considered in itself an educational insti- 
tution. It is a school in which not only the professor and the stu- 
dent study together, but also the men in active practice, ranging from 
the green graduate, trying to hold down his first job, to the old fel- 
lows, the Nestors of the profession, full of years and honors, but it 
is a fact, that in spite of their years and honors and their bank accounts, 
however large they may be, they never reach that point in their pro- 
fessional careers where they feel that they can do without the instruction 
supplied by the technical press. 

Do not make the mistake of allowing yourselves to think that your 
graduation from this school has made you "Engineers." Your instruc- 
tors have laid good foundations: they have set up the piers, but the 

99 



Sig. 6. 



100 THE TECHNICAL PRESS. 

superstructures must yet be built, and in that every man is his own 
architect. Your graduation simply means your entrance into a broader 
field of activity in which you will be brought face to face with the 
real problems of life, and if you decide to follow out your line of studies 
and take up the profession and practice of engineering, you will find 
that your success will, in a large measure, depend on the use you make 
of the literature of your profession. 

You have probably been told often that experience is the greatest 
teacher and the best school, but while it certainly is one that every one 
of you will have to go through, sooner or later, no man ever achieved 
great success who depended solely on his own experience for enlighten- 
ment. The technical press records for your benefit the experience of 
others, and it is on this experience that you must depend principally 
for the building of the superstructure of your professional career. 

In referring to the technical press as an educational institution, I 
do not wish to imply that it should be considered as a substitute for the 
college. The high-class technical journal does not attempt to give you 
an elementary education, or to duplicate what you have already learned 
or are supposed to have learned in college. It excludes from its columns 
nearly all matter of an elementary nature and such material as may be 
found in standard text-books or which is already a matter of common 
knowledge to the profession. It seeks for the benefit of its readers 
the sort of Information that is not yet found in text-books nor taught in 
the class room. Wherever a man is doing work in a new or better way 
than others ; wherever new and better tools are made, or new processes 
devised; wherever progress is being achieved, it is the province of the 
technical press to investigate that progress and to make it public for 
the general benefit. 

Two generations ago, engineering literature, as we know it, was 
practically non-existent; today, there are several hundred weekly and 
monthly technical publications; there are hundreds of engineering 
societies of all grades, from the great national organizations to the 
local societies in towns and colleges, many of which publish periodic 
proceedings containing the papers and discussions presented at their 
meetings. Add to this the avalanche of new books on engineering sub- 
jects that Is being poured forth by the various publishing houses; add 
further, the thousands of trade publications issued by manufacturing 
concerns, many of which are real engineering treatises; add again the 
vast volume of technical literature published by the Government in the 
form of specialized bulletins, and then consider that this overwhelming 
flood of literature is the production of America alone and that England, 
France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and even Russia and Japan, are also pro- 



FROST. 101 

ducing literature in greater or less quantities. Consider all this, and 
you will see what a problem is presented in this huge bulk of printed 
material, and will realize how true it is that "Of the making of many 
books there is no end/' 

No man can read all this literature; no, not the tenth part of 
it, even were he to do absolutely nothing else. If you select any spec- 
ialized subject, sucli as "Road-making," how many titles are there? 
You might say a dozen, or two dozen. In making up a reference bibli- 
ography of this subject recently, selecting only the works of historical 
and practical value and discarding the many pamphlets and government 
documents of little or no permanent value, and omitting all trade pub- 
lications, I compiled a list of nearly 500 titles in the English language 
alone, and this subject does not approach in volume some others, such 
as Structural Engineering and the Building Trades, for instance. This 
list, however, covered the period from 1600 to 1910 and of these 15 
were issued in the seventeenth century; 50 in the eighteenth century; 
250 in the nineteenth century, and 150 in the first ten years of the 
present century. What it will be before the year 2000, is beyond cal- 
culation. 

Some of these books attempted to treat the subject in an encyclo- 
pedic manner, such as Byrne's 1000-page "Treatise on Highway Con- 
struction"; others specialize in some one or two features of the sub- 
ject, such as Soper's "Modern Methods of Street Cleaning" and Jud- 
son's "Dust Prevention." When you consider this large volume of 
literature, you wonder what becomes of it, and who reads it all. As I 
said, no man can read it all, and no man in his right senses would or 
should want to do so. 

There are not only many books, but there are also many kinds of 
books. There are books describing good engineering practice, but 
poorly written, and there are books that are good literature, but bad 
practice. There are books, excellently written, perhaps, but based on 
wrong theories or advocating the authors' personal fads. So, also, 
there are many kinds of writers and many ways of writing books. There 
is the "hack" writer who will produce a book on any subject, of any 
length, in almost any given time. His method is to accumulate a quan- 
tity of printed material on the subject, from any source, and rehash it 
into readable shape, and to the desired quantity. He may, or may not 
know anything of the subject of which he writes, but he assumes that 
what has already been written by those who do know, and published by 
those who are supposed to discriminate, is good enough for his purposes. 
Such books contribute nothing to our store of technical information ; 
they are often misleading and unreliable, but their production is cheap, 



102 THE TECHNICAL PRESS. 

and a sufficient number can always be sold through modern advertising 
methods to 3deld a profit to both publisher and writer. 

In contrast to this there is the more careful compiler, the man 
of literary ability and breadth of mind, who studies his subject, collects ' 
his material from recognized authorities and with good judgment of 
the value of the literary productions of others, selects the good from 
the bad and produces an evenly balanced and smoothly reading treatise. 
This book also, may add little or nothing to existing knowledge, but it 
places the best of that knowledge in easily accessible form and con- 
stitutes a welcome addition to our library. Then there is the treatise 
prepared by an engineer of wide experience which may be a valuable 
record of a:chievements, but written in a style about as readable as the 
patent office Gazette or the Census Report, while another writer may 
present practically the same facts in a style as readable as a book of 
fiction. There are also the rare and occasional books that may be re- 
ferred to as the ''classics" of the engineering profession. They are the 
results of years of careful and patient research, compilation, and selec- 
tion by men of exceptional education and experience. 

In this class may be mentioned Trautwine's "Civil Engineer's 
Pocket-book" familiarly known as *'Trautwine," of which nearly 
100,000 copies have been sold ; Wellington's "Economic Theory of 
the Location of Railways," generally known as "Wellington" — a book 
now 23 years old, but still a standard, almost beyond competition, al- 
though in some parts rather obsolete. 

Besides these, there are books padded with many useless words and 
facts, books with a scarcity of facts, books with a greatly mistaken or 
exaggerated idea of the importance of their subjects, and many other 
varieties, too numerous to mention. 

Seldom, however, in technical literature, is an entire book the origin- 
al production of one man. Individuals usually give the first descrip- 
tions of their works or results of their investigations in the form of 
contributions to periodicals or of papers read before engineering socie- 
ties, and when such material has become more or less voluminous, some- 
one undertakes to collect it, sift it, re-write and arrange it for publica- 
tion in book form. If the book is to be a success, this work of prepara- 
tion is a laborious matter and cannot be done in a slipshod or careless 
way. First and foremost, perhaps, the writer must be thoroughly 
interested in the subject and feel an impulse to write on it; he must be 
moved by a desire to contribute something to the world's store of 
knowledge and to fill a gap in existing literature, rather than by a de- 
sire to produce merely a commercial article for the sake of the royalties 
resulting from its sale. In the writing of the book many things must be 
considered. A mere statement of facts does not constitute a book. The 



FROST. 103 

facts must be presented in logical order and in brief and grammatical 
language that can convey but one meaning. Pet theories and fads 
must be forgotten and illustrations should be used wherever necessary 
to assist the reader in forming a clear and concise understanding of 
the text and not for the purpose of padding a slimly worded book up to 
a three dollar size. 

After the manuscript is prepared, the book must be manufactured 
and marketed through a publisher, and I think that I am justified from 
an experience of some years in saying, without going into details, that 
there are several kinds of publishers, from the factory that turns out 
**hack" literature to the publisher whose name is a guarantee of au- 
thority and reliability. 

From this somewhat superficial classification of books, writers, and 
publishers, you can readily appreciate the necessity of most careful 
selection. Technical books range in price from $1.00 up, principally 
up, and you can spend a big pile of money on a small pile of books. 
Therefore, when you buy, buy with care. Few engineers know what 
they really want in the way of books. Some buy nearly everything in 
their line of interest, good and bad alike, but the average engineer can 
afford only a few books on any one subject. He wants only the best, 
and in many cases he is not so located that he can examine the books 
before buying. He usually buys from the advertised descriptions, de- 
pending entirely on the reputation of the publishers or of the writer, 
but he is taking a leap in the dark that may be costly, as even the pub- 
lisher with an A-1 reputation may not be infallible. I recollect an oc- 
casion when I was looking over the library of a well known bridge en- 
gineer and on my remarking the omission of several books on his 
specialty, he opened a drawer of his desk and showed me quite a number 
of books, some issued by the best known publishers, which he had pur- 
posely concealed from his assistants because of their absolute untrust- 
worthiness. The publisher does not, and cannot afford to produce a 
book with intention to mislead, but through a mistaken judgment of 
his advisers, or through the pursuasive ability of a writer, he is some- 
times induced, even against his better judgment, to issue a work which 
later proves to be unreliable. Such a book not only brings financial loss 
to the publisher, but in the hands of an inexperienced man may become 
a source of great danger, resulting in disaster and a ruined reputation. 

You will ask: "How, then, are we to know what books to buy?" 
That is a serious question with all engineers, young and old. The re- 
views of books published in the recognized engineering journals, gen- 
erally speaking, form a good guide, but like the books themselves, there 
are various kinds of book reviews. The average ''review" of a tech- 
nical book is a rehash of the author's preface, and knowing this, some 



104 THE TECHNICAL PRESS. 

authors make broad statements of what their books are Or are supposed 
to be, and thus obtain good notices, with their consequent sales." The 
periodicals that actually review or criticize technical books in an intelli- 
gent manner, are comparatively few. 

The "Book Review Digest," a guide for librarians, published in 
Minneapolis, has selected only four periodicals out of the hundreds in 
the technical field from which to quote book criticisms. These are 
''Engineering News," "Engineering Record," and "The Engineering Di- 
gest," and for electrical books only, the "Electrical World." 

I believe that I can fairly say that the book reviews, published in 
the monthly Literature Supplement of Engineering News form as good 
a guide to the selection of engineering books as is available to engineers 
today. In these reviews, all books are judged by the standard of their 
usefulness to the practicing engineer, and the policy is very strict. 
Practical engineers, who are recognized authorities in their various 
fields, are selected as reviewers ; the criticisms are fair and no favors 
are shown to either publisher or writer ; no consideration is made as to 
whether or not the publisher is an advertiser, and no money could buy 
a favorable notice for an unworthy book. Many copies of Engineering 
News are purchased for the sake of these reviews alone, and there are 
many engineers who will not purchase new books on important subjects 
until they have seen reviews in Engineering News. The same policy 
is adherred to in the case of individual opinions. When a letter is 
received asking for an opinion as to the best books on a certain subject, 
or for a comparison of two or more books, it receives careful considera- 
tion, on the basis that it is better to keep a man's good-will even at a 
considerable expense, than to lose that good-will by selling what may 
be entirely unsuitable for his purposes just to make a sale. Hundreds 
of inquiries of this nature are received every month and that this policy 
pays is shown in the fact that we are dealing today with engineers in 
every corner of the world — men whom we have never seen and never 
expect to see, but who trust entirely to our selection and judgment. 

Another point of importance is the necessity of being up-to-date 
in your technical reading. The necessity of the publishers keeping his 
literature up-to-date is one of the main reasons for the vast number of 
books that are published. Engineering practice is so constantly chang- 
ing that it needs many books to keep pace with it, and most of them 
must be new books, but the best of these run through several editions 
and remain standard for some years. In regard to new editions, how- 
ever, it is well to be careful. The 47th "new and revised" edition of 
Wood's "Treatise on Railroads," or some other such book, might be an 
interesting piece of literature and it might also be a most comprehensive 
work, but it would have the fault common to all books that have run 



FROST. 105 

through a large number of "revised" editions — a, foundation based on 
out-of-date principles. It is difficult, if not impossible, so to "revise and 
enlarge" any book through many editions, that it will be as thoroughly 
up to the times as another and entirely new book, written with the most 
modern conditions as a basis; and the time must surely come when the 
old reliable treatise, like the defeated champion, must be dropped into 
the regions of the "has-beens." 

To illustrate this, referring again to the subject of "Roadmaking," 
in 1583, there was published a book entitled: "The Duties of Con- 
stables and Surveyors of Highways." It ran through seven editions in 
25 years, but the art advanced, and in 1610 was issued a new book en- 
titled: "A Profitable Work Concerning the Mending of Highways." 
This preached a new doctrine — that of highway repairs. Then came 
various books telling how to make these repairs ; later MacAdam, Tel- 
ford, and Metcalf came on the scene and propounded new theories of 
construction which called for many more books and pamphlets. Later 
followed the invention of the stone crusher, the steam roller, the road 
machine, mechanical excavators and other machinery for road con- 
struction; a great variety of mechanical devices for street cleaning; a 
variety of paving and road-making materials, and finally the automobile 
with its accompanying dust problem. All these call for special treat- 
ment and cause the production of literature in the proportions of an 
inverted pyramid. Pages might be quoted from many technical books 
published within the last ten years to show of how little value much of 
this literature is today, and the uselessness of out-of-date engineering 
books, but I will only quote one sentence from the aforementioned 
Wood's "Practical Treatise on Railroads," the standard of 1825, in 
which the author seriously states that "Nothing can do more harm to 
the adoption of railroads, than the promulgation of such nonsense as 
that we shall see locomotive engines traveling at the rate of 12, 16, 18 
and 20 miles per hour." Recent books on the subject of flying machines 
and some other subjects become out-of-date in many of their state- 
ments almost before they are off the press. 

This is sufficient, I think, to show you the importance of keeping 
up-to-date in your reading, and of keeping pace with new developments 
in that field of engineering in which your interests lie. 

As to the extent to which you should keep pace with these new de- 
velopments, let me quote from an address by Mr. C. W. Baker, Chief 
Editor of Engineering News, before the students of the University of 
Michigan. 

"Take, for example, that branch of engineering known as Water 
Power Development. We do not have to go back more than 40 years 
to reach the time when the old 'mill-rights' were the men who act- 



106 THE TECHNICAL PRESS. 

ually did all the work that was done in this country in the develop- 
ment of water-power. All the knowledge they needed was carried under 
their hats, with perhaps some few rules copied in a private note-book. 
Today, however, an engineer who conducts a water-power development 
enterprise must, either directly or through assistants, be familiar with 
the latest practice in stream gaging, dam construction, hydraulic motors 
and regulators, electric generation, transmission and utilization, and 
power-house construction, to say nothing of such matters as the re- 
lation between engineers and contractors, executive methods, dealings 
with labor organizations, franchises, and riparian rights. It m.ay be 
well, also, for him to know how to handle a board of directors and float 
a bond issue.' 

"Perhaps you may object that no one engineer can do all this, but 
the fact is that engineers, in the aggregate, are doing all these things; 
and that every successful engineer today finds himself constantly in 
need of knowledge that he cannot carry in his head and for which he 
must rely on the experience of others, as recorded in professional litera- 
ture." 

This brings up to the engineer the problem of digging out of the 
mass of literature offered him the things which he wants and needs; 
and it puts up to the makers of this literature the problem of how to 
turn out their product in usable form ; how to give the engineer what he 
needs and give it to him in such shape that he can make practical use 
of it. 

In a general way, it would appear that the solution of this problem 
lies in the direction of specialization. This is an age of specialization. In 
law the lines of specialism are drawn very fine and there is hardly a law- 
yer whose field of activity is not well fenced in, and in medicine, the 
all-around family doctor of a generation ago has given way to a hun- 
dred or more specialists. In the engineering profession specialization is 
almost as extensive, but it is a thing more recent than we are apt to 
realize. The only real engineering work done a century ago was in the 
construction of canals. The profession naturally developed with the 
growth of the country along more or less distinct lines, but its formal 
differentiation into the four great main branches of Civil, Mechanical, 
Electrical, and Mining has taken place within a quarter of a century. 
Today each of these great divisions is sub-divided many times and each 
of these sub-divisions has its own special literature. 

To the uninitiated, it might appear that an engineer does not have 
to read the whole vast mass of the literature of his profession, but only 
that relating to his own specialty. Actually, however, the problem does 
not work out so easily. There are no tight fences built between the dif- 
ferent specialties, and he would be a foolish man who would build such 



FROST. 107 

a fence around himself and limit his view of life to what he could see in 

one direction through a little peep-hole. On the contrary, the boundaries 
overlap on every side. Here is an engineer, let us say, of a Portland 
cement works, interested in the use of cement in buildings, bridges, dams, 
and a hundred other structures, and also in the appliances of the mine 
and the quarry, in steam-shovels, kilns, hoisting and conveying ma- 
chinery, and in the conveying of materials. Manifestly, then, this en- 
gineer wants something more than the literature of Portland cement 
manufacture. 

Another reason why an engineer cannot wisely make his reading of 
too limited scope lies in the fact that in all construction work the en- 
gineer is constantly working himself out of a job, and every change 
presents new problems of its own for solution. You will readily under- 
stand, therefore, why the question of a too voluminous engineering 
literature cannot be disposed of simply by saying that each engineer 
shall read the literature of his own special branch. If he is wise and 
ambitious, he will read that and much more. 

There is a very considerable amount of engineering literature that 
assumes to itself an air of superiority because of the fact that it is of 
no use whatever, such as the theoretical discussions and records of ex- 
perimental research which wander so far away from the practical 
worker that he can never make any use of the results. 

When you make a critical analysis of engineering literature, measur- 
ing it all by the standard just stated, you will be surprised to find what 
a large portion of space in some engineering journals and society trans- 
actions is taken up with such matter, which nobody ever used and no- 
body ever will use. 

There seems to be an idea among a certain class, that the thing 
which is directly useful has a plebeian odor about it, while useless knowl- 
edge has something of the same odor of sanctity that clings around the 
old classical studies. So in the application of science, theory is too often 
set on a pedestal, and elaborate researches are carried on to search out 
facts which, when they are found, are of no earthly use to anyone. 

Theory is all right in its place, aimed straight at practical results, 
but vague theorizing and experimenting, with nothing more in view 
than a hazy possibility that somebody, sometime, somewhere, may find 
it useful, only cumbers our already overcrowded literature with useless 
stuflf, and occupies the space needed for things of greater importance. 

Another sort of literature which, at the present day, ought to be 
scrutinized very carefully, is — descriptions of engineering works. It 
may seem strange to you that descriptions of engineering work should 
not have the first place. There was a time, not many years ago, when 



108 THE TECHNICAL PRESS. 

engineering journals consisted almost wholly of such material, but no 
journal could today attempt to publish descriptions of every engineering 
work — every bridge and water-works and steam-engine or mine oi 
power station, and so on throughout the whole range of activity of a 
thousand busy engineers. Such descriptive matter would answer no 
good purpose, and, in fact, would be the least useful. You will find 
that the engineering journals and society transactions in which this 
class of articles consumes a large portion of the space are left to accumu- 
late unread upon the shelves, or find a final resting place in the waste- 
basket. 

****** 
Every engineer wants to keep in touch with everything of import- 
ance that is published, affecting his interests; but such material may be 
published in any one of a hundred or more periodicals and no man 
can attempt to read them all, even if he could afford to buy them. The 
best, and practically the only, method of getting this information, that 
is open to the busy engineer, is through the use of an index, such as 
the ''Technical Press Index," published in connection with "Industrial 
Engineering and The Engineering Digest." This gives each month 
all details and brief summaries of about 500 important articles published 
during the preceding month, and by using this as a supplement to his 
reading of two or three of the leading periodicals in his field, an engi- 
neer will have at his command everything of special interest to him. 
****** 

In conclusion, I believe that it would pay everyone of you to read 
Engineering News — not to look it over superficially in the library, but 
to subscribe for it, to receive a personal copy, to study it weekly as re- 
ceived, and to have your copies bound and carefully preserved for 
future reference. We have reason to believe that most of our subscrib- 
ers preserve and bind their copies of Engineering News, and while from 
one point of view it is of no interest to us what becomes of our issues 
after they reach the subscribers, in pursuance of our purpose to make 
the journal of the greatest usefulness to the engineering profession, 
we would strongly advise our readers to preserve their files complete. 

We are aware that some of our readers pursue the practice of cut- 
ting from the paper such articles as are in their special line of work at 
the time, which they file on some system or other, and throw away the 
rest of the paper. Perhaps if a man were absolutely sure that he would 
follow a particular specialty all his life long and would never have need 
of information on any other department of engineering work, this would 
be a good course to pursue ; but very few engineers can map out 
their future in that way. Not many years ago, thousands of engineers 
were devoting all their attention to railroad construction; today nine- 



FROST. 109 

tenths of them are in reinforced concrete work, hydro-electric develop- 
ment, contracting, and other fields of engineering work, and it is quite 
safe to say that those fared the best in making the change who were the 
best equipped for the other lines of work and who had kept in touch 
with them so far as possible during their work on railroad construction. 

The men who have achieved the greatest measure of success are 
the men who have worked, read, and thought more than was absolutely 
necessary, who have not been content with knowledge sufficient for 
the present needs, but who have sought additional knowledge and stored 
it away for the emergency reserve. 

It is this apparently superflous labor that equips a man for every- 
thing that counts in life; and I would, therefore, advise you, in your 
own interests, to preserve and bind your files of Engineering News. 
The possessor of these files and the periodic indexes that have been 
issued will have at hand an encyclopedia of modern engineering pro- 
gress which will be almost as easy of reference as a dictionary and 
which will constitute in itself a complete library of engineering litera- 
ture. The time will come when the information you can find in these 
pages on other departments of engineering than that upon which you 
may be at any one time engaged, will be of the greatest value, and 
you will find that your subscription must not be considered as an ex- 
pense — it is an investment that will repay you many times over. 



BUSINESS TRAINING FOR THE ENGINEER. 

By 
Dr. Alex. C. Humphreys. 

Dr. Humphreys, the President of Stevens Institute of Technology, 
is also a practicing engineer of high standing who has been so success- 
ful from a business point of view, that he has come to be acknowledged 
as the highest authority on the question of providing business courses 
in technical schools. As an engineer to be truly successful must be a 
good business man, it behooves the student of engineering to read all 
he can about the business feattfres of engineering practice. Therefore 
the numerous books and papers of Dr. Humphreys that contain refer- 
ences to this subject are commended to our readers for perusal. Most 
of them can be obtained through the Secretary of Stevens Institute of 
Technology, Hoboken, N. J. 

Dr Humphreys was born in Scotland and came to America at the 
age of eight. He was educated at his father's private school in Boston, 
and at the age of fourteen he passed an examination for entrance into 
the U. S. Naval Academy, but was disqualified on account of youth. 
Then he went into business, first in Boston and afterwards in New York, 
rising steadily for ten years. At the age of twenty-four he recognized 
the necessity for a technical education and began the full regular course 
at the Stevens Institute, attending lectures twice a week and doing the 
rest of the work at home. In due time he graduated, and shortly after- 
wards he accepted the office of Chief Engineer of the Pintsch Lighting 
Company. His work since then has been mainly in the line of gas 
engineering, in which he is recognized very generally as the highest au- 
thority. 

In 1902 he was elected President of Stevens Institute, and it is 
owing to his good work that that school has been so successful in Me- 
chanical Engineering education. Dr. Humphreys is a D. Sc. of the Uni- 
versity of Pennsylvania and an LL. D. of Columbia, Princeton, and New 
York Universities. He is a member of the leading engineering societies 
of America and England, besides many other societies working in pub- 
lic interest. 

Editors. 



Ill 



BUSINESS TRAINING FOR THE ENGINEER. 

By 
Dr. Alex. C. Humphreys. 

Self-evident should be the truth of the proposition that the engi- 
neer ought to be a man of business, or at least, informed of, and pre- 
pared to conform to, business conditions and business methods. When 
this proposition is squarely laid before them, it is self-evident to the 
majority of successful engineers and men of business. Business men, 
bankers, and manufacturers not infrequently refuse their confidence to 
engineers and experts as a class, because, under trial, some individuals 
have demonstrated their incapacity to meet business conditions; from 
the standpoint of the man of business their reports, advice, conclusions 
have required interpretation and readjustment or amendment. 

The man, so far somewhat exceptional, who is able to bring to the 
service of his clients or associates a sound technical training and the 
ability to meet business conditions, proves by his comparative success 
the material value of this dual capacity. For the sake of the profession 
and the country at large it is important that this broader capacity should 
no longer be exceptional. 

To this end the professional educator and the engineer-student 
must better recognize the conditions to be met in practice. A general 
and definite demand on the part of the business world for engineers of 
such broader capacity would ensure the necessary reform in the separ- 
ate schools of engineering and the university departments of applied 
science. All that is possible should be done in the technical schools to 
harmonize theory and practice. 

After graduation the young engineer will be influenced by com- 
mercial conditions, and perhaps by his own natural bent, to become a 
specialist. Today the field of engineering is so wide and the require- 
ments are so exacting that no man can expect to excel unless he con- 
fines himself within certain rather narrow limits. But no matter to 
what part of the field he confines his efforts, he will surely find himself 
limited and bound, more or less by commercial conditions. 

From this it may be argued that the engineer should not aim to 
be also the commercial manager; as a specialist, he should confine him- 
self to the engineering branch of his business. To this it may be re- 
plied that whatever special branch of industry is adopted, the engineer 

113 



114 BUSINESS TRAINING FOR THE ENGINEER. 

must understand and practice in harmony with the commercial condi- 
tions of that specialty. There may be a further specialization between 
the engineering and the commercial management, but the engineer 
should have at least a knowledge of the general fundamentals of busi- 
ness practice and also a knowledge of the special limitations attaching 
to the particular business pursued. 

As in schools of engineering we cannot expect to instruct the stu- 
dents in all the specializations of engineering science and practice, so 
with instruction in business methods we can expect to give only a broad 
training in fundamentals upon which the student can safely and ex- 
peditiously build when the need for specialization is encountered. 

If it be admitted that the engineer-student should receive some in- 
struction in business methods before graduation, it then remains to be 
determined what can be added in this connection to a course already 
crowded almost to the limit. Perhaps the matter of first importance is 
accounting. We cannot expect to train the students to be expert book- 
keepers, nor is it necessary to do so; but we can expect to give them 
what is of more value and what many bookkeepers do not possess — a 
sound knowledge of the principles of double-entry bookkeeping. This 
knowledge engineers need to enable them to exercise a close, intelligent, 
and independent supervision of manufacturing cost. 

The students should be taught carefully and conscientiously to dis- 
criminate between the charges to capital or revenue, and they should be 
warned of the ease with which errors can be made in this connection 
and the disastrous consequences likely to follow their commission. They 
should also be shown the necessity for making adequate provision for 
depreciation of plant, the scheme to be based upon an exhaustive analysis 
of local conditions and not upon the blind acceptance of arbitrary rules 
formulated by accountants. They should be shown that books can be so 
kept, either through ignorance or design, as to hide the facts and to 
present a warrant for the payment of dividends unearned. They should 
be shown that all this, and much more, they will need if they are to be 
competent as managers or reliable as advisors in connection with the 
purchase of properties. 

They can also be shown that often, when called in to pronounce 
on the value of some new apparatus or process where these have already 
been under commercial test, the technical investigation may well be 
supplemented by a competent examination of the books of account; and 
that here the man who is only an engineer or only an accountant will 
probably be found incapable of conducting such an examination. In 
such a course might also well be included enough instruction in the 
science of statistics to warn the student against the danger of draw- 
ing conclusions from insufficient or inconsistent data. 



HUMPHREYS. 115 

In connection with the work in this and other departments the 
effort should be made to bring the students to a keener appreciation of 
the value of a w^orking command of English. They should be shown 
that it is not enough that they possess the knowledge, but they must 
have the ability to convey to others, and especially to their clients, in 
language concise and free from ambiguity, the results of their profes- 
sional or administrative work. 

Unquestionably there is a crying need for more efficient work in the 
teaching of English in the schools of technology, and perhaps this state- 
ment may fairly be extended to include some of the colleges and uni- 
versities. Reform in this direction is most difficult of accomplishment. 
The work performed is too often of a perfunctory character, whereas 
it should be characterized by enthusiasm and originality. The time 
available is limited, and, therefore, the first care should be to give such 
a training in English as will be most efficient to meet the requirements 
of professional practice. 

This leads naturally to another feature which may well be included 
in the department of business methods — instruction in the law of con- 
tracts. We cannot expect to give engineer-students a working knowl- 
edge of the law of contracts, but we may very reasonably expect to im- 
press them with the dangers to be encountered and the necessity of 
knowing when it is advisable to seek thoroughly compfCtent legal advice. 
Some advice in this line can also, to advantage, be included in the lec- 
tures on engineering practice. 

Generally the entering class in their wisdom are ready promptly to 
denounce as useless or out of place all non-technical studies ; thus the 
sympathetic co-operation of the students, which is such an important 
element in the efficient teaching required in a full course of study, is 
not obtained, and the foundation is laid for many regrets to be ex- 
perienced in the years after graduation. 



RECORDS. 

A Talk for Undergraduate Students of Engineering. 

By 
E. E. Howard, C. E. 

This lecture, which was delivered in 1909 to the Engineering 
Society of the University of Kansas, is on a subject new to engineering 
students, but at the same time of great importance, — and not to them only, 
but also to engineers in general. Mr. Howard handles the question 
in a masterly manner, and his discourse is of an unusually pleasing 
character, imbued as it is throughout with a fine sense of humor. The 
Editors believe that their readers will peruse the paper with both in- 
terest and profit, and that they certainly will occasionally be amused by 
some of the author's illustrative stories. 

Ernest Emmanuel Howard was born at Toronto, Canada, February 
29, 1880, and was graduated at the University of Texas in 1900, with 
the degrees of B. S. and C. E. Immediately after graduation he was 
engaged in irrigation works for rice lands in lower Louisiana, afterward 
returning to the University of Texas as instructor in Engineering, and 
spending some time working for the railroad commission of that state 
under Mr. R. A. Thompson, its chief engineer. 

In June, 1901, he entered the office of Dr. Waddefl, Consulting 
Bridge Engineer, at Kansas City, Mo., and rose rapidly in his employ, 
in which he has remained continuously ever since. After some office 
work he was made Assistant Engineer on the construction of the Red 
River bridge at Alexandria, La., till its completion in 1902, after which 
he returned to the office for a year, then went to Mexico as Assistant En- 
gineer on the extensive bridge work of the Vera Cruz and Pacific Rail- 
way, becoming Resident Engineer In Charge In September, 1903, which 
position he retained until the completion of the entire work in 1904. 
Next he took charge of the construction of the James St. Bridge and the 
reconstruction of the Ohio St. Bridge, both over the Kaw River in Kan- 
sas City, Mo. ; and from March, 1905, till Its completion he was in charge 
of the construction of the Sixth Street Inter-clty Viaduct at Kansas City, 
a structure costing some $3,000,000.00. 

When the firm of Waddell & Harrington was formed in January, 
1907, Mr. Howard became the Principal Assistant Engineer; and in 

117 



118 RECORDS. 

September, 1910, he was made Associate Engineer. During the five 
years of the firm's existence, Mr. Howard has taken an active and re- 
sponsible part in the designing and construction of over $10,000,000.00 
worth of bridge work , and he is now doing his share in the handhng of 
some $15,000,000.00 worth of structures, on the engineering of which 
the firm is engaged. 

His personal work has covered every detail in bridge engineering 
of every kind, from the conception of projects to their materialization 
and the finishing of the structures ; also examinations and reports upon 
old bridges, and aiding in the evolution of new and improved types of 
movable spans. Probably there is no engineer of his age in America 
who has had a broader or more extended experience than Mr. Howard; 
for at the time of this writing he is not yet thirty-two years of age. 

He has contributed one extensive paper to the American Society of 
Civil Engineers, and has taken active part in other engineering organiza- 
tions. 

Editors. 



RECORDS. 

A Talk for Undergraduate Students of Engineering. 

By 
E. E. Howard, C. E. 

Throughout the ages man has devoted much laborious effort to 
the making of records. Centuries before Job lamented "Oh that my 
words were now written, oh that they were printed in a book, that they 
were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock forever," other men 
had been stirred with that same universal desire and by their efforts 
and with their genius had developed an art of record making. Some 
time ago an archaeologist showed to me a piece of stone on which he 
said was the oldest known attempt of man to write, and the writing was 
(lone regularly, in well defined characters, skillfully cut on the smooth, 
rounded surface of a vase. Clearly it was no first attempt, but was a 
product of skill and practice so that one wondered, as he meditated, 
who before had trained and developed that skilled hand. From such 
ancient times down to this present, man has never ceased to make rec- 
ords, and today he is making more than ever before. 

Every calling, every profession, every art, every science-, every busi- 
ness, every industry of mankind has its records and its record-makers. 
It is not surprising that in engineering, a Science and an Art, a Pro- 
fession and a Business, an Industry and an Inspiration, there are records 
to be made of many different kinds. When an engineer prepares a 
design, estimates, plans, and specifications, as a banker he has used rec- 
ords of money, as a merchant records of prices, as a statistician records 
of costs, as a transporter records of tariffs, as a producer records of 
materials, as a manufacturer records of products, as a lawyer rccor(l> 
of legislation, as a physician records of human endurance, as an artist 
records of fitness, as a historian records of achievements, and as a poet 
records of his own imagination. 

To come into contact with the record making of his chosen profes- 
sion it is not necessary for a young engineer to wait till some one calls 
on him for advice as to building a bridge, or a dam, or a railroad ; for 
with his first engineering undertaking record-making will be required 
of him. In fact, it is usually because of his record-making that the 
engineer-graduate has immediate market value. 

119 



120 RECORDS. 

Records are made for information, to preserve and to convey 
thoughts ;' and it is so axiomatic as to be almost unnecessary to say that 
the meaning of a record should be clear and plain. If a record conveys 
no meaning, it is no true record; if it conveys inaccurate meaning, it is 
a record worse than valueless. If a thought be worthy of preservation 
and transmission, it were a foolish thing to try to preserve it or trans- 
mit it in some unintelligible manner. Even when records are for our- 
selves alone, it is essential that they be decipherable. The first prin- 
ciple, then is 

"RECORDS ARE FOR INFORMATION." 

From marking numbers on stakes to the successive steps in the solu- 
tion of complicated and abstruse problems, the larger part of the rec- 
ords you will make in the next five or ten years, will be made, as many 
good things are, by hand. Your value will be determined in no small 
part by your skill at this record-making and your skill will be deter- 
mined in no small part by your writing and your figuring. Can you 
write? That is, can you write a page that you are not ashamed of? 
Can you write down a column of figures that you ought not to be 
ashamed of? 

Long ago you began to learn to write, hut can you write? Writing 
is good writing when it is legible, be it Spencerian, vertical, backhand, 
lean-over, or what not. Writing is bad writing when it is not legible 
be it ever so beautiful a piece of pen-and-ink hand-decoration. To be 
sure, great and honorable men are not always good penmen; but here 
is an immutable fact which you can accept now or learn later by ex- 
perience: legible and orderly ivriting and figuring will advance you in 
the estimation of everyone with whom you have to do business. You 
can verify that statement even now by your own observations. You 
can see about you men whose ability was brought to notice by skill in 
this elementary art, usually considered mastered and done with long 
before college days. Of course, when you are Chief Engineer or Gen- 
eral Manager with your name engraved at the top of the sheet, you 
will have a stenographer and will dictate all your letters; and then 
the merest scrawl or scratch over your title will serve to reveal to admir- 
ing and criticising henchmen your identity. But, between then and 
now there will be a space when, perhaps, you will be sending in monthly 
reports to the Division Engineer, and it will not count to your advan- 
tage if he has to write to ask you whether such a mark is intended to 
be a three or a five or some part of a mysterious secret code. Writing in 
itself does not make a man or an engineer; its character is no conclu- 
sive proof of a man's characteristics. Some of the best looking esti- 



HOWARD. 121 

mates I ever saw contained the most errors; sometimes the most legible 
writing has the largest number of misspelled words ; but if you are 
going to take advantage of everything for the struggle before you, do 
not ignore this simple but important factor. You may have read re- 
cently this shrewd advice: "Appearances are deceitful, but so long as 
they are, there is nothing like having them deceive for us instead of 
against us. A dirty shirt may hide a pure heart, but the chances are 
against its covering a clean skin." Orderly neatness in figuring and 
writing is an effective, if modest, recommendation. Some of the time 
spent in studying what Professor Bates characterizes as "language 
which, while it is English, is yet hardly more intelligible to the students 
than would be Choctaw or the speech of Borrioboola Gha" might be 
profitably employed in learning to write the language one is going to 
use. And by "write" I do not mean here any sort of literary composi- 
tion; but merely "the mechanical act of tracing or inscribing symbols 
or ideographs." The written alphabet has been declared to be the 
greatest and most useful of all human inventions. If it is so, and as it 
is quite unprotected by patents, does it not seem strange that so many of 
us utilize this remarkable invention in such an unworkmanlike manner? 
Having, then, a serviceable, legible system of characters or sym- 
bols, in order to make a record these characters must be arranged into 
accepted forms for conveyance of ideas. A second axiomatic concept 
of Record Making is, therefore, 

"SYSTEMATIC ARRANGEMENT." 

An orderly allotment, a systematic arrangement of symbols, of 
characters, of words, of terms, of every detail of a record is essential 
to make that record complete. It cannot be disputed that accuracy is 
enhanced by symmetrical, methodical apportionment and classification 
of data; and that the recording of the complete, precise, exact truth in 
some disorderly, chaotic, and confused way may result in error as great 
as that arising from erroneous information. To struggle through a 
perplexing labryinth of uncorrelated meanderings of truth, a maze of 
indiscriminately muddled facts, on a disentangling expedition is as try- 
ing to the temper as to discover that extensive calculations and careful 
deductions must all be discarded because of incorrect statements of pre- 
liminary data. For instance, I recall a man, a graduate of a reputable 
engineering school, who was instructed to keep a force account (the 
daily working time of a dozen laborers) in order to check the time-book 
supposed to be kept by an illiterate foreman. Now the foreman, in spite 
of his honest attempts, got his time-book so badly mixed that it was 
impossible to tell what was due the men at the end of a week's time 



122 RECORDS. 

and the engineer, with a sheepskin passport from a considerate Facul- 
ty, was called on for his records ; but, sorrowful to relate, they were 
in such condition that he himself could not discover how much was 
due to each man, or indeed with accuracy, to any man. Pages of figures, 
but no information ; words, but no records ! And so, at such a simple 
examination he failed, and he found that it wasn't just something to 
be ''made up next term," hardly worth mention, for he had sacrificed 
the confidence placed in his ability to do anything well ; and soon another 
took his place. 

You will be forgiven for not knowing how to run the job your 
boss has, but lapses in the little things trusted to you will not be 
overlooked so" easily. In the examinations to which you are coming, 
most of the questions will be very simple ones ; but you will have to 
pass them every day. 

Of all the deplorable, unsystematic record-making habits, none is 
worse than that of writing desultory notes on loose sheets. Records 
should be kept in books, or else bound into books or some workable sub- 
stitute therefor. In some of the largest engineering offices in this 
country it is required that every figure be put down in a note book, 
that every arithmetical operation be shown, so they can all be found 
when the inevitable checking up comes. Too often it happens if notes 
are made on nondescript sheets, that they are misplaced or lost even 
before they are old, and one is sometimes forced to the undignified and 
annoying attitude of looking for them in the waste basket. Nothing is 
more irritatingly imbecile than to swoop deliriously on this scrap, of 
paper or that scrap of paper in the sudden anxious hope that it may 
perchance bear certain information once recorded on a similar frag- 
ment. "There may have been times in human history when the action 
of the Turk who picks up and preserves every stray piece of inscribed 
paper, 'because it might contain the name of Allah' has been highly 
reasonable." But in these times a similar behavior is wholly uncalled 
for even in literary fields, while in engineering records it is an indication 
of a lamentable lack of that system and order which throughout en- 
gineering is a prime requisite. 

You have read Alexander Pope's observation that "Order is Heav- 
en's First Law," and you may recall that one St. John who had a 
heavenly vision, received as his first command a direction to make a 
record, a record of some permanancy — "What thou seest write in a book." 
As you start out in your engineering work remember St. John and 
Pope — "What thou seest write in a book," — "Order is Heaven's First 
Law." 



HOWARD. 123 

It is not necessary to say to engineers that their records must be 
solely of that which is true. Untrue records may be of service in other 
lines, but in engineering they would fail because of their falsity. An 
eminent jurist who had broad opportunity for observation of many men 
on the witness stand, gave his opinion that engineers as a class are the 
most accurately truthful men in the world. You are not dealing with 
man-made laws, you can't evade the law of gravitation; force and in- 
ertia are not matters of opinion; and experience will permeate you 
with a higher regard for truth than ever precept could. 

Records of value should be of some permanency, and books in- 
stead of loose sheets are an advance toward that desideratum. Don't 
go around leaving "foot prints on the sands" for your engineering 
records. Your employer won't see much that is "sublime" about records 
so easily washed away. There is a story told of a rodman who was 
sent out to establish a bench mark in a railroad yard, who returned, 
advising that he had located it on the draw head of a box car. He 
further explained to the thunderous silence which greeted him, that he 
had carefully recorded the number and initial of the car, and could 
find it at any time. 

It is not improbable that your first records will be made in ordi- 
nary "field books" and properly will follow the usually prescribed 
standard form. But even such standard forms are sometimes so ar- 
ranged and filled in that no one, not even the maker, after a time, can 
determine the meaning of the notes. 

The field notes of a survey, of a pile driving outfit, of a force 
account, of anything, ought to contain all the information at hand in 
some sensible arrangement, so that some one else can discover what was 
done. This constant reiteration of one idea may seem to you a foolish 
repetition, but when you have had to sit and tear your hair in an effort 
to determine whether angles were turned to right or to left, or whether 
such a line is center line of track or center line of structure, or some 
equally provoking simple thing, you will acknowledge the correctness 
of this oft-repeated requirement. Surprising it is that the special and 
limited notes are nearly always included, while the simple essentials 
are omitted. 

Somewhere in the book the proper general explanation should be 
given. For instance, a pile recorder may proceed systematically to call 
the piles in the bents Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, and that much may be clear 
in the notes ; while you may search in vain to discover whether he counted 
from north, south, east, or west. I have looked over old note books 
whose sole distinguishing title was "Line B" ; no date, no name, nothing 
to indicate place or purpose. 



124 RECORDS. 

The records made by all the different men connected with one en- 
terprise should fit together to form a connected whole, and definite ex- 
planations are needed that there may be uniformity of arrangement of 
similar data. An example of lucid, explicit instructions of this char- 
acter is to be found in Molitor and Beard's ''Manual for Resident En- 
gineers," a book which the novice will find to be an excellent basis of 
practical work, giving, as it does, clear ideas of actual duties and how 
to perform them, and in which the experienced engineer will discover 
many valuable hints and suggestions. Excepting that portion of the 
book treating of Specifications, you will find that one-sixth of the num- 
bered paragraphs, covering over one-third of the whole book, are devoted 
to the duties of resident engineers with respect to records. You will no- 
tice that the details of these records, the form and size, the titling and 
numbering, the methods of report, are all carefully specified. 

Field notes should be comprehensive and complete. In making 
them put down everything you think will be needed and then all 
the things you are sure you will remember. Of course, the engineer 
is busy (like the Habitant farmer — "No sooner one job's finish dan he 
got two t'ousan more"), and the time for note making is limited, so that 
while notes must be comprehensive they should be concise and brief. 
It is far better to err by making notes too plentiful than to have omis- 
sions. Attempt to come to the point as clearly as possible, but be sure 
everything is included. Two words need not be used where one would 
serve, but that one should not be omitted. 

Don't be so brilliantly brief as was an engineer who was directed 
to check the material for a half-through girder span on a couple of 
cars, and who, instead of giving a memorandum like this — IGl, 1G2, 
2FB1, 3FB2, etc., reported with much satisfaction "there are six big 
pieces and a lot of little pieces" ! And he had told us he fully understood 
checking steel for shipment! 

Make your notes thorough, make them brief if you can, but make 
them thorough anyway. The difficulty in accomplishing this was once 
forcibly impressed upon me when on a trip inspecting old bridges with 
a prominent engineer. We both made notes and he always finished his 
sooner than I. Nevertheless, when the accounting came and the notes 
were made into a report, mine were decidedly lacking and his contained 
information I had instinctively left to memory — to fallible memory. 
Sometimes I had even failed to state the number of spans, or the stream 
name, or the location number, or something else. equally simple. Field 
notes should be comprehensive, but comprehensive with discrimination. 

Perhaps following the work of making notes in prescribed forms 
will come the writing of letters and reports. While letter writing is not 



HOWARD. 125 

mentioned in many treatises on engineering, it still becomes an import- 
ant part of professional work. When you come to direct others in their 
work, you will do so largely by letter; and it will then be essential 
that you be able to write a letter which will really convey your ideas to 
its recipient. Some day you will be writing specifications for construc- 
tions to be read by men of very different abilities, of varying views, of 
complex relations, and it will be essential that your thought be conveyed 
accurately to each one.. 

Of course, the mention of writing simple sentences that clearly 
express one meaning without ambiguity, is smiled upon as being too 
elementary a detail for college men. Surely "grammar,'^ "composition," 
"rhetoric," "literature" are household words ; but if you were to make a 
practice of examining letters written by college graduates, you would 
conclude that "grammar" was a theory long ago discarded, that "com- 
position" was not for personal application, and that "rhetoric" and 
"literature" were studied for "credits," not for use. 

We agreed just now that poor penmanship is not necessarily an 
evidence of lack of culture; but this fact is sure — although a man may 
not disclose his character by his penmanship, he surely will betray his 
training by his use and arrangement of words and sentences. You ex- 
pect to impress your employer and later your clients as an educated, 
scholarly man; can you, or do you even try, to write scholarly letters 
in simple sentences properly paragraphed? We commend or condemn 
authors by what they have written, and so will business men judge us 
by what we write and how we write it. 

Specifications and reports may not concern you soon, but at the 
very outset of your professional career you will surely have occasion to 
write letters. A sloppy, slovenly, confusing, ambiguous letter produces 
the same effect as a display of dirty hands, unkept attire, and general 
personal untidiness. Your professors have told you this in substance, 
and have corrected your English ; and you have considered their opinions 
to be due merely to their academic idiosyncrasies; but let me assure 
you that they have overlooked your lapses far more readily than will 
your business critics. 

A word might be said regarding letters of application for positions. 
Perhaps you may sometime need to write one. You will then be judged 
by your letter, and it therefore deserves serious effort. Make it brief. 
Make it neat. If practicable, make it cover only one page. Spell the 
man's name correctly. Secure his exact title and address and use 
them. Give tersely enough information to enable him to judge the 
product you are advertising; at least so he will not have to write for 
preliminary data. Don't tell him you have had charge of every piece 



126 RECORDS. 

of work you happened to be engaged upon, for he may know the man 
who really was in charge, and, in consequence, might have to start in 
by disbelieving you. And don't, as did one University man in a letter 
of application I have seen, don't spell "engineer" with a "j." 

The recording of ideas by drawing is, to me at least, far more in- 
teresting that to put them down in writing. To originate a detail or 
combination of details and to inscribe on the drawing board your plan 
and your details so as to carry out your scheme' is a most engrossing 
occupation. Many students, not understanding that drawing is a means 
for expressing ideas and that its character will depend on the ideas, 
decry the work of drafting. Truly a man working only with mechanical 
precision in stolid vacancy of mind, making letters on a map, or tracing 
some other man's conceptions, is limited in scope, and his work is 
drudgery; but no work can be of more absorbing interest than that of 
a designing draftsman who is constantly making inventions and record- 
ing them on paper. Pictured in his mind is a complete structure, and 
piece. by piece he mentally puts it together, and plans and dictates how 
others shall actually put it together. Here, too, the same axiomatic, 
simple principles for records are applicable. The plan is made to con- 
vey a meaning. 

Once I made a plan for a canal drainage gate that was to be better 
than anything on the whole of a large rice irrigation plant. Facilities 
for drafting were somewhat lacking, and the drawing was crowded on 
one small sheet; but to my mind that gate, and especially its manifold 
advantages, showed forth with unmistakable clearness. You can sympa- 
thetically imagine my indignation and the consequent commotion when I 
found my beautiful gate was being niade as wide as it was to have 
been high, and the flaring wing wall had become a slide-way for the 
water to run over. The foreman produced the plan and I explained. 
When he grasped the idea he recognized its efficiency. But he said "that 
plan doesn't show me anything like that." And I then began to 
appreciate the principle that a plan should be so drawn as to appeal to 
the user, not to the maker. 

Vast numbers of engineering records are made only by drawings, 
and the engineers must be able both to make them and to understand 
them. Skill in making drawings is like skill in writing and figuring. 
Don't possess yourself with the idea that if you are unable to make 
a clear drawing, neatly lettered, it will be accepted as evidence that you 
are meant for greater things. You are more likely to succeed to other 
positions through skillful drawing. And as drawing is the natural way 
and the only way for recording much engineering thought, you ought 



HOWARD. 127 

to be able to draw well if you expect your thoughts to be clearly under- 
stood and to prevail. 

Even in those cases where a drawing is for the use of the makei* 
alone, it should be complete and definite. To stare confused at your own 
drawing and not find enough familiar lines to know what it is all about 
will quickly produce a genuine foolish feeling. Some draftsmen will 
make a large scale layout for a riveted joint in such a way that even the 
next day it is of no use to them, and they will have to make it over 
again, with additional expenditure of energy, or else get rivets on 
chance dots, and center lines for bearing lines, and wrong angles, and 
incorrect scales, and other numberless errors. 

If you really intend to present your idea so that somebody else 
may carry it out, don't credit him with omniscience, or skill in mental 
telepathy, or a mind that moves in your individual track. Either give 
every detail of everything you propose, or else expect surprises as the 
doer applies his own ideas and perhaps achieves the required end in a 
manner entirely at variance with your own veiled, stealthy, and secret 
intentions. If you show a rivet floating around promiscuously in an 
area of possibilities, don't be astonished when it is put in some other than 
the exact spot you had in mind. Don't leave a space blank, and think 
that anybody ought to know that was ''three inches." 

The plan maker is responsible for the mutual correlation of the 
various parts, and he must give careful attention thereto. Usually in 
an extensive work, contractors or mechanics have plans only of their 
particular share, and they build in accordance therewith, trust- 
ing entirely to the detailer that their portion will fit with the work 
of the other builders. Especially when a change is made in one draw- 
ing or in one detail, it should be traced throughout all of the parts that 
may be affected and on every sheet of the entire set of drawings. For 
instance, I have set anchor bolts according to substructure drawings 
only to find later that the steel work would not fit, and then learned that 
changes had been made in the steel plans and had not been properly 
carried through to the substucture drawings. 

If a drawing be for construction use, it is well to remember that 
however easy it may be in the drawing room to spread three or four 
sheets out on a desk and compare from one to another in order to 
find one lonesome dimension, it is entirely a different thing when you 
are shoe deep in mud with the rain dripping on your print, or when 
your fingers are so cold that they can hardly push a pencil, or perhaps 
when the tropic sun is beating on the back of your neck and one hand 
is busy fighting off mosquitoes, when your dearest wish is for a drink 
of cool water without any mud in it, and when the contractor is being 



128 RECORDS. 

delayed and is roaring about for immediate instructions, and for points, 
and for explanations. Give a thought for the man who is to try to fol- 
low out the plan, and arrange the data as nearly as may be for his ad- 
vantage and convenience. 

Aside from ordinary mistakes and avoidable errors, the principal 
deficiencies of drawings as records are largely due to a lack of con- 
ception on the part of the maker as to how the user will perform the 
work. This suggests the natural conclusion that only that man who has 
done the class of work involved can really properly prepare a plan. 
While this is not generally practicable, it is always possible for the 
designer or detailer to have clearly in mind just how he would take each 
step if he were to follow the plan and build thereto. Your structures 
cannot spring into existence complete and perfect from your Jove-like 
brow, but must be put together piece by piece. It is not uncommon 
to find in steel-work plans instances of members which must first be 
taken apart before they can be put in place, and rivets which no earthly 
riveting tool could possibly drive. Many times I have had to make over 
plans for substructure, supposedly complete, plentifully supplied with 
dimensions, but yet lacking nearly every dimension required for staking 
out the work on the ground. The maker of such plans should prepare his 
drawings with the thought that he might be called on to stake out the 
work, and to direct the carpenters in their form-building and the other 
mechanics in their various efforts. 

A carefully made plan is certain to save time and labor by having 
the thinking done at the outset once for all. But the information must 
be so arranged that a meaning, one meaning, the intended meaning, is 
made clear to the user. Above all, for plans to convey information 
there must be information to start with. 

Final records of completed works are of special value both for 
private information and for public reference; and they aid greatly in 
the advancement of the engineering profession. Some times anxiety to 
stop expense immediately on the cessation of the construction causes 
records to be left in an unfinished condition — a most expensive economy. 
Notes should be final, completed, indexed, and arranged as soon as pos- 
sible after making. For instance, it may become of importance to kno\;i 
quickly just how deep the piles of a trestle were driven, or what load 
a certain floor was designed to carry, or what pressure per square 
foot was allowed on a certain material, or even who inspected certain 
work. All too frequently such data are entirely neglected. Recently 
in an important matter none of the city officials were able to find in their 
records any definite information concerning the depths of piers in a city 
bridge built only a few years previously. The remembrance of some 



HOWARD. 129 

workmen was their most reliable record. Such conditions are prevalent 
— they are not exceptions ; and engineers are to be blamed for such folly. 
When a work is completed it is best to make a new drawing showing 
the structure as actually built; or if this be considered extravagant, a 
special set of blue prints should be marked in red ink *'as built" with 
each altered dimension corrected. Such drawings or prints should be 
dated and properly filed with a report or general statement concerning 
the work. 

Aside from the personal or local value of a record of completed 
work, there is a value to the profession at large. We advance on former 
accomplishments: the best way to forecast the future is to examine the 
past. To this end it is essential that records be made of the design and 
construction of completed works and that their plans be available for 
study and comparison. This is being done by the technical press and 
in the publications of engineering societies. No two pieces of engineer- 
ing construction are exactly alike; the engineer must constantly, with 
versatility and judgment, adapt old ideas to new conditions; and the 
clearness with which new conditions are recognized and the aptness with 
which the old ideas are applied measure the ability of the engineer. The 
fundamental laws of machines are known to every man, or can be learn- 
ed with ordinary diligence ; but the application of the principles resulting 
in the complicated mechanisms of today demands laborious effort, vigi- 
lant patience, and unceasing enthusiasm. Never again should it be said 
that there are "lost arts," never more should mankind travel again and 
again the same slow paths of the development of the arts. Future gen- 
erations should surpass us by "knowing both what we have done and how 
it was accomplished. 

There is not a single piece of important engineering work done any- 
where, concerning which it would not be advantageous to some one to 
know exactly how it was performed. The simplest thing to those who 
know is yet as abstruse as matters most profound to those who know it 
not. An engineer once told me that he had an extensive but unsuccess- 
ful search made in one of the best engineering libraries in this country, 
in order to find a description of how to put up an ordinary frame bent 
trestle — a simple enough thing, surely, for those who know. 

The younger members of the profession rightly expect that those 
of mature experience should devote some time and effort to a record of 
their accomplishments and failures for the general good, in order that 
each success, no matter by whom accomplished, may ultimately lead to 
a greater. And while the young engineer may not assume to instruct 
those superior in wisdom and experience, he may still have a share in 
such records, if only by contributing statements of facts and tabulations 



130 RECORDS. 

of data. And if no one other than himself ever examines his final 
records, they yet have a genuine value. 

In order to give you a better appreciation of the variety of rec- 
ords encountered in engineering work, I shall take as an example a 
contract covering the construction of a number of bridges for a rail- 
road in Mexico, v^^hich was of the cost-plus-percentage variety, and en- 
deavor to trace through the various records required. 

You thus see that the Engineers were concerned not only with 
plans, specifications, surveys, field notes, inspection reports, and estimates, 
but with cost-keeping, accounting, money exchange, invoicing, bills 
of lading, bookkeeping, and all the records required for the conduct 
of business. You will have noticed too, the magnitude of the labor in- 
volved in reducing these records and in classifying results for proper 
comparison. Such reduction is common in records of many kinds and 
is sometimes carried to extreme refinement. I have heard of a mine 
superintendent who was such an enthusiast for comparing averages that 
he was reported to compute each day the average daily car number of 
the cars loaded at the mine. 

A somewhat just criticism of the training of our engineering 
schools is made in that, being usually prematurely vocational, it fails to 
educate. Another criticism more pointed, and in some respects not wholly 
unjust, is that, although such engineering training is principally voca- 
tional, it fails to train. 

Now, frankly, you all expect to sell something. That something 
is your services. Some day it may be your opinion, or your judgment; 
but your opinion is not now of much value, and you will find it hard 
to realize cash on your judgment. Your services you perform with 
hand and brain, and what you do with your brain is expressed with your 
hands. So with your training you should try to train your hands. 

Suppose now, everyone of you were to write a letter to my firm 
requesting employment. You would each receive an answer that your 
letter had been placed on file. Do not cherish the belief that ''on file" 
means "lost." Some day a man or two is needed and the file is examined. 
So far as we know, you are all alike, all graduates this year of an en- 
gineering school of repute, about the same age, of about equal exper- 
ience. Now who do you suppose will get the job? The letters are 
all examined and one by one discarded, this one because it is careless, 
that one because it is in such bad writing that evidently the writer will 
not be able to make a neat drawing, another one for having gross mis- 
takes in spelling, still another because it shows that the writer has ab- 
solutely no knowledge of how a business letter should be phrased; so 



HOWARD. 131 

finally the position is offered to the writer of the cleanest, neatest, most 
careful letter. And every employer of engineers in the country follows 
more or less the same plan, perhaps not consciously, but inevitably, be- 
cause the only thing he has to gauge you by is that letter. 

Now suppose you are all working side by side in a drafting room, 
and some special work comes up. Who do you suppose will be chosen to 
do it and so begin to raise himself from the general level? You know: 
it will be the man who is doing the neatest, clearest, most accurate work 
with his drawing instruments. Suppose you wanted to choose one out 
of ten men, otherwise equal, to advance to the designing department, 
which one would you select? Assuredly you would take the man who 
could make the neatest, most orderly estimates, whose writing was leg- 
ible, and whose figures were plain. Suppose you were all working in 
equal positions in a field corps turning in notes every day, and one 
man was to be selected for a better position. Do you believe it would 
be the man whose notes are always smudged and dirty and irregular 
and inaccurate? Frankly now, other things being equal, who will get 
the raise? Certainly, there are other things, other characteristics, that 
will be the determining factors later, but for your immediate future 
nothing is more important than neatness. Neatness is evidence of care- 
fulness, and carefulness of accuracy. By the time you have to 
design a truss or an engine, you will have forgotten all you know about 
it today, and will have to take up your books and study and really 
learn it, but what you are unable to do in writing and figuring will be 
noticed now. 

You may be able to advance rapidly in spite of your illegible writ- 
ing and careless drawing and dirty notebooks, and you may be con- 
fident in assurance that you will ; but, do not forget that you will be 
pulling a heavy drag all the time. I could show you men who never 
have taken the positions they deserve solely because of that drawback. 

When you get something for nothing, usually you have paid full 
value. Good records do not merely occur. Time and effort are the 
price — strenuous, sustained, painstaking, monotonous effort. But the 
price will not be paid in vain. 

An engineering student, therefore, should not only aim to learn 
how to conduct a survey, how to design a structure, or how to inspect 
a material, but he must also learn how to make records, intelligible rec- 
ords, of each effort. 

Recapitulating, 

Records are for Information. 

They should be 

Legible, Concise, and Comprehensive. 



132 RECORDS. 

to which end there should be 

Skillfully Made Symbols, 

Orderly, Systematic Arrangement, and 

Definite Ideas of Information Desired. 

They should be 

Permanent, Accurate, and Intelligible. 

Memory is Fallible, Paper is Cheap. 

Books Were Invented to Keep Together Loose Sheets. 

A Record Correct Once is Correct Forever. 

Take up your record-making till in time you yourselves will add 
to those "epics of engineers, perhaps unsung in words, but being writ- 
ten in huge characters on the face of this planet." 

You have ideals, cherish them; you have ambitions, follow them; 
you have determined to make your mark in the world; make it. But 
when you do make that mark, in the name of all good records, make it 
so clear and so plain that other folks shall know, beyond the peradven- 
ture of a doubt, exactly what it stands for ! 



SOME EDUCATIONAL PROBLEMS IN A LARGE 

UNIVERSITY. 

By 

Professor Vladimir Karapetoff. 

This paper was written as an address to alumni and not for stu- 
dents. The main reason why it is offered for perusal to entering fresh- 
men is that they may understand some of the problems which the 
Faculty has to solve and to enable them to sympathize Avith it in the 
difficulties with which it continually has to contend. Another reason 
for presenting this address to freshmen is that it treats of the emotional 
part of college life — an aspect which is not generally recognized by 
either instructors or students — at least not with sufficient seriousness. 

The ethical features of this paper and of the other two papers by 
Prof. Karapetoff given in this book are earnestly recommended for the 
student's consideration and guidance. It would be well were there in 
the engineering profession more of its representatives who, like Prof. 
Karapetoff, do not hesitate to treat in print openly and fearlessly the 
moral and ethical questions that are so important to both students of 
engineering and practicing engineers. 

Vladimir Karapetoff was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1876. 
His father was a mechanical engineer, and his mother studied medicine. 
He was educated in the common schools of Tiflis and Baku, Transcaucasia, 
and in the Imperial Institute of Ways and Communication at St. Peters- 
burg, where he took the degree of C. E. in 1897. In 1899 and 1900 he 
studied electrical engineering at the Technische Hochschule at Darms- 
tadt, Germany; and in 1902 he defended a thesis for the degree of M. 
M. E. in St. Petersburg. From 1897 to 1902 (with intervals) he was 
instructor in electrical engineering in three different colleges in St. Peters- 
burg and lecturer in the evening classes of the Imperial Gun Works. 
From 1904 to 1908 he was Assistant Professor of Experimental Electri- 
cal Engineering in Cornell University, and since 1908 he has occupied the 
chair of Electrical Engineering in that institution. 

He devotes considerable time to music (piano), and appears in pub- 
lic recitals. He has given several series of lectures on musical subjects, 
among others Wagner, Liszt, and Musical Expression. 

He takes an active part in socialist propaganda, and has lectured in 
defense of socialism on several occasions. 

i33 



.134 EDUCATIONAL PROBLEMS. 

He has written a great number of valuable books and papers on 
engineering subjects in Russian, German, and English. 

He is a member of the American Institute of Electrical Engineeri^, 
the Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education, and the Ameri- 
can Association for the Advancement of Science. 

His practical engineering experience covers hydraulic, railvv^ay, me- 
chanical, and electrical work in Russia and Germany and considerable 
electrical work in the United States. 

At present he is spending his sabbatical year in the employ of J. G. 
White and Company, Engineers and Contractors of New York City. 

Such a wide and varied experience for a man only thirty-five years 
old is phenomenal ; and it certainly ought to stand him in good stead in 
his chosen specialty of Electrical Engineering Instruction. 

Editors. 



SOME EDUCATIONAL PROBLEMS IN A LARGE 

UNIVERSITY.* 

By 

Professor Vladimir Karapetoff. 

The ultimate end of education is to develop the latent possibilities 
of the individual, so as to bring them into better adjustment with his 
environment, and to fit him for realizing the highest ideals of the times. 
The education of the soul comprises that of the intellect, emotions, and 
the will. This gives a natural classification of the problem confronting 
our educators. 

I. Intellectual Side of University Life. — The great problem is 
"what to teach," and "how to teach." The common-sense "practical" 
man would probably say: Why, teach law to the lawyer, teach medi- 
cine to the doctor, engineering to the engineer ; and teach them in a plain, 
practical way, so that the students can understand and apply the knowl- 
edge. 

This "horse-sense" advise is based on the assumption that a young 
man or woman between eighteen and twenty-two is a piece of soft ma- 
terial, that can be shaped into any desired form. Alas, Mr. Business 
Man, fortunately it is not so. They are free, thinking, feeling, and will- 
ing (or rather unwilling) beings, and to make them assimilate our 
teachings is at least fully as hard as for you to sell goods to your cus- 
tomers. Human education is not a mechanical or chemical process, or 
even to be compared with the training of monkeys. It is an organic 
process of self -development ; the school merely provides conditions 
favorable for such self-development. With the best teachers and first- 
class equipment, we fail with certain individuals, and these individuals 
are not necessarily stupid or lazy. They simply choose not to develop 
according to prescription, and we ought to be glad that there are such 
individuals. They keep before our eyes our most precious gift — free- 
dom of choice. I would not part with this gift for the sake of burden- 
ing the country with a few more "stuffed" college graduates. 

Evidently, it is impossible to give a general answer on "what to 
teach," and "how to teach." I wish only to call your attention to the 
fact that these two problems are confronting us all the time. Success 
in teaching depends primarily on two subtle psychological factors: live 
interest and well directed conscious effort on the part of the student. 
You, gentlemen, are stimulated in your present activities by many potent 



*An address before Cornell Alumni of Pittsburg on August 29th, 1908. 

135 



136 EDUCATIONAL PROBLEMS. 

incentives, such as immediate useful results, notoriety, increased profits, 

desire for promotion, fear of discharge, and so on. All these incentives 

are virtually lacking with our students, and unless we wish to use the 

methods in vogue with ancient Egyptian taskmasters, we have to rely 

on the spontaneous interest and effort on the part of our students. 
********* 

Another educational problem of great importance is the relation 
between professional training and general culture. Most of our stu- 
dents desire in the first place a professional training that shall give them 
a livelihood. Again, the recent progress in most branches of practical 
agtivity is of such a tremendous scope, that fully four college years are 
required for professional training alone. But it is felt by the best educa- 
tors that it would be wrong to deprive large masses of professional 
students of the benefit and pleasure of general culture, wrong towards 
themselves and towards the country. 

Now, in the first place, what is general culture? My answer is: 
Man's life is divided between furnishing services to and receiving ser- 
vices from society. General culture comprises such studies as better 
enable a man to receive and to enjoy services from society, while pro- 
fessional training enables him to give better service to society. From 
this point of view, French literature, botany, or even the steam engine, 
can be studied either as a profession, or for general culture. You will 
see from this definition that the principal aim of education — develop- 
ment of all of the man's latent powers — is not complete without a fair 

amount of general culture. 

********* 

11. Emotional Side of University Life. Young teachers are often 
baffled by a sudden outbreak of laughter in a class, at an apparently 
insignificant word, a gesture, not at all comical to an outsider. I am no 
longer offended at these outbreaks since I came to understand their 
cause. A man needs emotions as a part of his mental life, and a young 
man or woman of twenty needs them badly. The college life offers so 
little opportunities for emotion that the student instinctively looks for 
any small occasion to laugh, to yell, to whistle, to run, even to see a dog- 
fight. He is like a prisoner who is glad to share his solitude with a 
spider. We are apt to condemn students for going to trashy shows, for 
horrid mandolin playing, for taking an exaggerated interest in ball 
games, for spending time in saloons and doubtful down-town resorts. 
But, gentlemen, once natural channels for emotions are throttled, un- 
natural channels are sure to open up. I know, some of you would say, 
that students do not care for Shakesperean plays, classical concerts, 
and readings from Browning; true, because these things are not purely 
emotional, they require considerable concentration and training for their 



KARAPETOFF. 137 

enjoyment. Not only is the average student not prepared to understand 
higher art, but he objects to using his intellect in it, since what he 
wants is a pure play of simple emotions. Watch him sit at the theater, 
and rock, and whistle a catchy refrain with the chorus; only an ignora- 
mus would say that his mind is dormant or lazy. His emotions are 
playing intensely; he enjoys in his imagination the part of life that reality 
has cruelly deprived him of. Five-cent shows with their highly-emo- 
tional performances have filled a long-felt want for brain workers, and 
for people whose life has much drudgery in it. 

Now, instead of deploring and condemning, let us see what can 
be done to give students the necessary emotions. Said old Darwin sadly 
at the end of his life : "If I had to live my life again, I would have made 
a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least every week; 
for, perhaps, the parts of my brain now atrophied would thus have been 
kept alive through use. The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness, 
and may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and more probably to the 
moral character, by enfeebling the emotional part of our nature." 
Through lack of emotions man is dwarfed both esthetically and ethically, 
and if he is thus dwarfed during his student years, the probabilities are 
that he will continue to drag his burdens through life without sunshine 
and love, like a mule in the mine. 

What then is to be done? My answer is: provide more oppor- 
tunities for the enjoyment of art and for social intercourse. The very 
nature of the case precludes compulsion, at least in the beginning. We 
must proceed slowly, because a lack of appreciation of art is a general 
fault in this country ; the remedy must begin at home and in the common 
schools. I am aware that good work is being done for the development 
of artistic taste ; this gives me courage to sec the time when each student 
will be required to pursue in the University the study of at least one 
form of art: literature, poetry, music, painting, sculpture, in their 
various manifestations. Mind you, he will pursue them for the emo- 
tional pleasure that is in them, and not for drudgery or any utilitarian 
purpose. With a proper preparation in the high school it will be difficult 
to find a student who would not manifest even the slightest interest in 

these arts.* 

*********** 

III. Volitional Side of University Life. — ^Just a picture: a man is 
drowning in the river, and a horrified crowd watches him from the shore ; 
one of the spectators hastily takes his coat oflf and jumps into the water 
to save the struggling one. Is this the man who is the best swimmer, 
or a man whose emotion of pity is more deeply aroused than that of 



*As I understand, the onlv required subjects in schools in Ancient 
Greece were music and the study of the Homeric poems. 



138 EDUCATIONAL PROBLEMS. 

anyone else in the crowd? Not necessarily; he is a man whose will is 
trained to obey the dictates of the intellect and the heart. In my estima- 
tion, an educated man with all his vast knowledge and refined emotions 
is a failure unless his will is trained to do what he knows and feels he 
ought to do. 

Our watch- word must be : ''Cornell men are trained to do things;" 
this was the ideal of the founders of the University — Ezra Cornell and 
Andrew D. White — men of great deeds and high practical achievements. 
Some of you may think that the business of the University is to teach, 
and not worry about students' emotions and wills. We feel, however, 
that our purpose is not fully accomplished unless we graduate men and 
women who hot only know and feel things, but who actually do things 
when the time comes to act. 

Now, the will, like any other faculty, grows by exercise, and the 
difficult side of the problem is: How to organize University life so that 
students should have enough opportunity to exercise their wills, to 
choose, and actually to bear the consequences of their decisions. The 
student undoubtedly has to exercise his will in going to the lectures at 
appointed hours, in preparing his recitations and reports, in voting for 
class officers, and in taking part in various students' activities. But this 
is far from enough : He or she is guided too much from without, and 
the consequences of a student's decision are not at all in proportion to 
the differences in the motives. During the last panic a considerable 
number of engineering apprentices and of trade apprentices were 
laid off by a large concern for an indefinite time. The foreman of the 
apprentices told me that trade apprentices took this event in an entirely 
different way from college graduates. The trade apprentices, being 
used to rely upon their own resources, immediately began to plan their 
program of action, while college men seemed to be hopelessly lost, 
as soon as they could no longer follow a program arranged for them by 
others. I should be loath to think that college education weakens the 
will while developing the intellect, yet I do not see much in our Univer- 
sity life that is conducive to the development of the will. 

The manager of a large company in the Middle West told me re- 
cently that in filling positions with college graduates he always gives 
preference to those who have been prominent in students' activities. 
"It does not matter," said he, "whether the man distinguished himself in 
athletics, in politics, or in literary activity. It simply means that he is 
a man of strong will and initiative, a man who can be relied upon to 
achieve results, without an external pressure." 

I think, this is a correct view regarding students' activities, and it 
is from this point of view that we must encourage them. The greatest 
difficulty is to induce a large mass of students to take a moderate part in 



KARAPETOFF. 139 

these activities, instead of a few becoming experts and almost profes- 
sionals, while the rest are satisfied with watching them and cheering the 

We often hear from our Alumni and from various employers of 
our graduates : "Why do you not teach your students this or that ; this 
is of great importance in practical life." The tendency is, at least in 
the colleges of applied science, to teach too many things in a general 
way, and none thoroughly. This is detrimental for the development of 
the will, since the student has no opportunity for concentration and for 
original study and research. The problem is to organize the courses so 
that the student gets enough general information, and at the same time 
some practice in special research, in which he has to exercise his judg- 
ment and will. But to achieve this, the course must be lengthened by at 
least one year. 



I have indicated a few general educational problems that we have 
to deal with in our University. In addition to these, there are problems 
of wide national and international character, that affect instruction and 
reflect upon the students' life. As such I would mention great differences 
in the wealth of students; low standards and ideals, as a result of greed 
and struggle for existence outside the University; indifference to philo- 
sophical discussion and to religious duties, because of the uncertainty 
pervading our economic and political life; use of liquors, loose morals, 
and a low estimate of women; indifference to the great political and 
economic issues of the times, and a tendency to follow demagogues and 
bosses. All these things students bring from their homes, imbibe from 
papers and magazines, and inculcate from one another. We are en- 
deavoring to counteract these harmful tendencies by all the means at 
our disposal ; and yet these being the curse of the times, our work is 
successful only in proportion as we have the support of agencies outside 
the University. The American people as a whole must make a de- 
termined effort to free themselves of the remains of barbaric times and 
establish a new commonwealth upon higher standards of thinking and 
living. 



HINTS TO STUDENTS ON THE EDUCATION 

OF AN ENGINEER. 

By 

Dr. Ira. O. Baker. 

Dr. Baker is one of America's most distinguished engineering in- 
structors and authors, and his advice to students should carry great 
weight. No one who reads the following paper can fail to be deeply 
impressed with the soundness of its doctrine, the profundity of its 
thoughts, and the elegance of its diction. It certainly is one of the 
most important of all the papers that the Editors have collected. Stu- 
dents are earnestly urged to read, ponder upon, believe, and follow the 
advice herein given by one who is universally acknowledged to be a 
great leader in technical education. 

Dr. Baker graduated in 1874 at the University of Illinois in the Civil 
Engineering Department, went into general practice for six years, then 
returned to his alma mater to teach, and has remained there ever since, 
devoting his energies to the development of that institution and to the 
advancement of the engineering profession through his writings. These 
comprise books and papers on masonry construction, roads and pave- 
ments, surveying instruments, leveling, and similar subjects. Every- 
thing that has come from his pen has been accepted by the profession as 
standard and authoritative. 

Kditors. 



141 



HINTS TO STUDENTS ON THE EDUCATION 

OF AN ENGINEER. • 

By 

Dr. Ira. O. Baker. 

Before Civil Engineers' Club of University of Illinois 

March 28, 1887. 

A recent discussion of civil engineering education in a prominent 
engineering journal by eminent professors and practicing engineers, 
suggested this subject. That discussion had reference mainly to the 
facilities which should be possessed by an institution professing to edu- 
cate civil engineers ; this article will have reference to how you as stu- 
dents of civil engineering may make the most of the opportunities offered 
by this institution. 

First let me remind you of the three elements of a true education, — • 
development, training, and information. By the first I mean the capa- 
city for abstract conception and reasoning; by the second, the forma- 
tion of correct habits of thought and methods of reasoning, and the 
training of the hand to execute and the eye to see; and by the third, 
the acquisition of the thoughts and experiences of other men, and of the 
truths of nature. The development of the mental faculties is by far the 
most important, since it alone confers that "power which masters all it 
touches, which can adapt old forms to new uses, or create new and 
better means of reaching old ends ;" and without this power the engineer 
can not hope to practice his profession with any chance of success. The 
formation 'of correct habits of thinking and working, habits of observing, 
of classifying, of investigating, of understanding, of getting clear and 
distinct ideas, of proving instead of guessing, of weighing evidence, and 
of thoroughly honest work, is a method of using that power economical- 
ly. The accumulation of facts is the least important. The power to ac- 
quire information, and the knowledge of how to use it when obtained, 
are of far greater value than any number of the most useful facts. 
There is no comparison between the value of a ton of nails and the 
power to make a single one. 

The student, particularly of the technical courses, not infrequently 
reverses the above order, and assumes that the acquisition of informa- 
tion, especially that directly useful in his proposed profession, is the most 
valuable element of an education. . Probably this error is owing to a 
misapprehension of the aim of a technical school. It is assumed that 

143 



144 HINTS TO STUDENTS. 

the object is to fit the student to earn his livelihood more easily, and 
that, therefore, the institution should give him the maximum amount of 
information and prac|;ice directly applicable in his professional work. If 
this idea were to prevail, there would be no difference between a tech- 
nical college and a trade school, and the product would be skillful ma- 
chines instead of educated men. The prime object is to make the stu- 
dent a wiser and stronger and more complete man, and at the same time 
to train and develop his faculties in the direction most useful to the en- 
gineer. This end is sought to be accomplished by coupling the mental 
development of the student with the acquisition of training and in- 
formation directly useful in the exercise of his profession. The best 
results would "be obtained if the student should cultivate and expand his 
power by pursuing a general course before entering upon the technical 
studies. The lawyer, the doctor, and the preacher, all take a general 
course and then the special. Why should not the engineer? Can the en- 
gineering student, in four years, accomplish as much as the student of 
law, or of medicine, or of theolog}^ does in seven? Is it wise for the 
engineering student to neglect that preparatory education which in the 
professions of law, medicine, and theology has long been recognized as 
essential for a professional education? An eminent, practicing engineer 
has said that "no greater mistake was ever made than that which as- 
serts that the engineer does not need to be liberally educated." 

Next let me emphasize the fact that it is best to follow one of the 
regular courses. If for no better reason, take a prescribed course be- 
cause of the experience of the early graduates of this institution. In 
the beginning no degrees were given, and our graduates found them- 
selves seriously handicapped by the lack of the usual evidence of a col- 
legiate education. A few students, although they propose to take the 
prescribed course, wish to change the order of topics. The courses as 
printed are probably the best, and following them certainly obviates any 
conflicts in times of recitation. In the mind of the student there is al- 
ways some particular reason for departing from the course; but ex- 
perience shows that in most cases, the student himself subsequently sees 
that he chose unwisely. 

Many students who follow a regular course take some extra stud- 
ies, but not infrequently make a mistake In selecting them. These extra 
studies aflFord an opportunity for the student to broaden his field of 
knowledge, and In choosing them the three elements of an education 
should be steadily borne in mind. Generally they are selected because 
of their supposed Immediate bearing upon the work of the chosen pro- 
fession. For example, a student In civil engineering, wishing to take an 
extra study, selects architectural drawing, because it will increase his 
skill in drawing and therefore the better fit him to do any of that kind 



BAKER. 145 

of work that may fall to his lot after leaving college. Whereas, having 
obtained the principles of drawing and the practice necessary to explain 
their application and to fix them in his mind, it would be wiser to employ 
his time at something else and wait for the practice which comes after- 
ward to obtain skill in drawing. If he selects architectural drawing 
with a desire to learn something of the principles of architecture, and 
holds the mere technic of drawing as subordinate to the prin- 
ciples of architectural construction or ornamentation, he chooses 
wisely. But, on the other hand, if he takes the subject because he thinks 
it will be useful in designing a depot or round-house, he will probably 
not derive much benefit from the study, for if the professor seeks to il- 
lustrate an important principle by reference to a triumphal arch or an 
ancient cathedral, the student will probably turn a deaf ear and allow his 
mind to wander to the time when he hopes to get a large salary for 
copying the drawings made in the recitation room. A student having an 
opportunity to take an extra study should select one that will develop 
some neglected intellectual faculty, or train his hand and eye in some 
new direction, or store his mind with a new class of ideas. In pursuing 
it, let him try to discover the spirit of the new subject, note the char- 
acter of the data considered, and compare the method of arriving at the 
results with those employed in the topics with which he is more familiar. 
In connection with the question of extra studies it is well to remember 
that three acres plowed deep generally yield more than four plowed 
shallow. 

However, the spirit with which the student pursues the studies of 
his chosen course determines the amount and quality of the education 
he gets. There are three things which sometimes unduly affect the 
interest, and consequently the progress, of a student in his studies. 
1. His estimate of the relative value of the different topics in the educa- 
tion of an engineer; 2, the supposed practical bearing of the topic upon 
the actual work of his profession; and 3, the immediate influence of any 
class of information in securing a position after graduation. 

1. He thinks that the best engineering education is to be obtained 
by giving as much of his time as possible to the technical subjects. The 
great multiplication of knowledge has made this an age of specialists, 
and if one would attain the highest success he must devote his attention 
to a narrow field ; but he can not know one subject thoroughly until he 
knows something of others. It is not expected that the engineer shall 
also be a learned linguist, nor a practical analytical chemist, nor an ex- 
pert geologist, nor a profound physicist ; but he must have some know- 
ledge of these topics before he can practice his own profession credit- 
ably. 



146 HINTS TO STUDENTS. . 

2. He often makes a mistake in his estimate of the bearing of any 
topic upon the actual work of his profession. For example, he thinks 
the adjustment of the surveying instruments is more important than de- 
scriptive geometry, while the fact is that he who is well grounded in 
the principles of descriptive geometry will be able to adjust any instru- 
ment at sight. Again, students are always more interested in railroad 
engineering than in analytical mechanics ; and they consider it far more 
important to learn a method of keeping transit notes than to understand 
the method of finding the angle at which a force acts at the best advantage 
in dragging one body upon another. The first gives information only, 
while the second gives the three elements, mental development, intel- 
lectual training, and information. Judged, even from the student's point 
of view, the latter is of more practical importance; and, farther, he 
who has the ability fully to comprehend it can devise a form of keeping 
his notes which will probably be better for him than any he can 
get from any one else. It is far better to be able to own the machine 
which turns out nails by the tens of thousands than to be able to 
hammer out a few by hand. Civil engineering education in America 
may be said to have commenced with the building of the Erie Canal. 
What think you would have been the effect, if the engineering student 
of that day had been content to limit his studies to those branches which 
he thought would be directly applicable in canal building? Would 
he have been able to solve the problems necessitated by a new mode 
of transportation? No one can foretell the development of the future, 
or the possible practical bearing of any topic. A few years ago students 
in physics desired to omit electricity, "because it was of no practical 
importance ;" while only a year or two afterwards their successors 
wanted to give all their time to that branch, "because of its great prac- 
tical importance." A broad scientific training is the best preparation 
for any branch of engineering. 

3. The attitude of a student toward his studies is often affected 
by the idea that, if he would get a position after leaving school, he must 
make his education "practical." The demand for technical graduates 
seems to be increasing, but it is certain that they are not sought 
after solely because they have crammed their heads and their note 
books with rules and formulas. The most simple operations, require 
the exercise of that good judgment which comes only to him who has 
paid the price by a study of those things which cultivate and expand 
the intellect. The man who learns simply the practice of his day will 
soon be "behind the times ;" he is a machine to be laid aside when a 
more profitable one is found. But he who has caught the spirit of 
growth is the one who makes precedents and determines the practice 
of his times. The latter only is able to solve old problems under new 



BAKER. 147 

conditions; he only has the good judgment necessary to know when to 
be exact and when not to be exact; he only understands that there is 
very much that books and formulas can not include. The wonderful 
material development of our country in the last quarter of a century, 
together with the scarcity of technical schools, made it possible for 
poorly educated and unripe engineers to find employment ; but the 
conditions are rapidly changing. The evidence is abundant and con- 
clusive. The new problems demand higher engineering ability and 
wider knowledge. The wise young engineer will prepare himself accord- 
ingly. 

In conclusion, there is one point on which I hope there will be 
no mistake. I do not wish to be understood as claiming that a general 
education alone is a sufficient preparation for the practice of civil en- 
gineering. The best technical training must be founded on a thorough 
scientific education. Although a man with a general education could 
"pick up" the necessary special information without attending a tech- 
nical school, it would be to his advantage, both in the final result and 
in economy of time, to pursue a technical course. The special en- 
gineering school not only develops that quality of mind most suitable 
to the engineer, but also gives him information and practice which it has 
been abundantly proved are of great utility in the practice of his pro- 
fession. On the other hand, it is not claimed that students immediately 
upon graduation from the technical course are engineers of mature judg- 
ment, although as a rule their training and attainments enable them to 
make a rapid growth. 

But, finally, let no student pursue an education alone for its 
material ends. He should strive to be not only a trained specialist but 
also an educated man, and some day, if not now, he will see that the 
latter is as desirable as the former. 



THE PRACTICAL ENGINEER. 

By 

Onward Bates, C. E. 

This address was delivered in December, 1909, to the Civil En- 
gineers' Club of the University of Illinois by a civil engineer who has 
attained great success in the practice of his profession and who has 
been honored by the highest distinction which that profession can 
bestow upon any of its votaries, viz., the presidency of the American 
Society of Civil Engineers. 

It has been found necessary to omit certain parts of it which are 
not specially fitted for the purpose of this book, notably both the be- 
ginning and the ending. What has been retained consists mainly of 
good, sensible advice. The Editors can heartily endorse what Mr. 
Bates says concerning the importance of correct spelling, for in their 
practice they make a point of rejecting all applications for positions, 
when such applications are misspelled. Of course, every man is liable 
to make a slip in spelling occasionally, often from carelessness rather 
than lack of knowledge ; but a grossly misspelled letter is a sure indica- 
tion that its writer has not been as thoroughly educated as a graduate 
engineer should be. 

What Mr. Bates says about the lack of ability of many young en- 
gineers to write letters and to talk is unfortunately too true; and this 
defect is far more important than most people deem it. The persistence 
with which American engineering students as a class ignore the study 
of English is simply disheartening. It seems almost impossible to 
force them to believe that a command of their native language is at all 
essential to their professional success. 

This paper is written with great force and vigor, and its teachings 
are true; consequently it behooves both students and young engineers to 
give heed to its instructions and profit therefrom. 

Mjr. Bates was born February 24, 1850, in St. Charles County, Mis- 
souri. In March, 1865, he entered the Fulton Iron Works, St. Louis, 
Missouri, as an apprentice, and learned the trade of pattern maker. In 
August, 1868, he attracted the attention of the late Col. C. Shaler Smith, 
who, by the way, was one of the finest men and one of the greatest engi- 
neers that America has ever produced. Col. Smith, who was then build- 
ing a bridge over the Missouri River at St. Charles, asked the proprie- 

149 



150 THE PRACTICAL ENGINEER. 

tor of the Fulton Iron Works to cancel the apprenticeship and turn Mr. 
Bates over to him. This was done, and Mr. Bates worked on that struc- 
ture for a year; then, by Col. Smith's advice, took a position with one 
of the Contractors on the substructure of the Eads bridge at St. Louis, 
on which work he remained two years. In 1871, by the advice of Col. 
Smith, he went to the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where he took a 
special course for two years, then returned to work on the Eads bridge 
for the Baltimore Bridge Company. From 1874 till 1877 he was em- 
ployed on the Cincinnati Southern Railway in various positions, then en- 
tered the service of the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul Railway, where 
he remained for a year. 

In March, 4878, he went to Australia as representative of the Edge 
Moor Iron Company, remaining there three years, during which time 
he directed many important constructions. 

On his return to the United States he was again employed by Col. 
Smith, and later became President of the Pittsburg Bridge Company. 
Next he served for a year as mining engineer in Mexico, and afterwards 
worked again for the Edge Moor Iron Company. In 1888 he entered 
the service of the Chicago, Milwaukee, & St. Paul Railway Company as 
Engineer and Superintendent of Bridges and Buildings, remaining for 
thirteen years and doing a great deal of exceedingly good and important 
work. 

From 1901 until 1907 Mr. Bates was President of the Bates and 
Rogers Construction Company, a most successful contracting firm. Since 
1907 he has retired to a certain extent from active practice, but is still 
greatly interested in matters professional. 

In 1895 the University of Wisconsin conferred upon him the hon- 
orary degree of Civil Engineer, and in 1909 he became President of the 
American Society of Civil Engineers. 

Editors. 



THE PRACTICAL ENGINEER. 

By 

Onward Bates, C. E. 



If I give you a lecture on words, it is not wholly inappropriate 
under the title of the Practical Engineer. We are not dummies; words 
are as necessary to us as to others, and in our profession more neces- 
sary than in some others. I will not ask if each of you knows his 
letters, accepting that much without question ; but I do question if each 
of you knows how to spell. If you do, it is more than some practical 
engineers do. Correct spelling is an accomplishment; a man is fre- 
quently under-rated just because he has made some mistakes in spelling. 
It is also a matter of importance, for sometimes the idea one wishes 
to convey is changed by a mistake in spelling. It is important to know 
the meaning of words, in order that you may say or write what you 
mean. How can one expect to write specifications, or draw up con- 
tracts, if he does not know what words to use, and what construction 
can be put upon them when they have been used ? In addition to spelling 
correctly, and using words whose meaning you understand, it is still 
more essential that you should know how to string them together. 
Our profession is exact in its nature, and should be precise in its 
expressions of fact or opinion, written or spoken. There is no occupa- 
tion in which it is more important to say precisely what is meant to 
be said. The engineer's opinions should be expressed with the same 
regard for accuracy as is used in his mathematical computations. 

Can you write a letter? Some engineers cannot. They may write 
what purports to be a letter, and can perhaps make their correspondent 
understand the ideas they wish to convey. I do not ask if you can 
write legibly; that seems to be a lost art, and is not, in these days of 
typewriters, to be expected. Yet the writing machine is not always at 
hand, and bad hand-writing is far more risky and impolite than mumbling 
of words where you have the opportunity to apologize and repeat them. 
I mean, can you write a letter, stating in clear, distinct, concise, and 
correct language the facts and opinions which you wish to make known 
to your correspondent? If you cannot, then your education as an en- 
gineer is incomplete. 

Do you know how to talk? To talk well is a great art. You can 
please, you can plead, you can instruct, you can command, or you can 

151 



152 THE PRACTICAL ENGINEER. 

rebuke, in each case with the right use of words, and the right degree 
of emphasis, if you can correctly use the English language. Engineers 
take pride in being workers; they like it to be said of them that they 
are the people who do things. In fact they seem to feel rather above 
talking, leaving that for the common people to do. Nevertheless they 
do talk, and not always to the best advantage. In the most momentous 
affairs they get others to talk for them, and when, as sometimes hap- 
pens, they fall under the necessity of making arguments, explanations, 
or demands, they suffer from inability to do justice to their cause. 
We may say that anybody can talk, and that some people make a 
business of talking; and yet mature observation leads one to believe 
that scarcely any other talent is more serviceable and more profitable. 
Talk, like every other commodity, is valuable not for its quantity but 
for its quality. There are times when a few words of wisdom are worth 
more than volumes of nonsense, although the latter has its value at 
other times. 

The command of the English language is a necessity as well as an 
accomplishment. It is the language of the profession, and it is fast 
becoming the language of the civilized world. The knowledge of this 
language is an essential requirement of the educated engineer ; it is a 
necessary part of his equipment, and we may call it one of the tools 
of the profession. We attach great importance to the other tools, and 
in my opinion have neglected this important one. How often do we 
observe an engineer, who has an excellent technical education, and who 
can apply it in his work, and yet lacks the facility of language which 
qualifies him to engage in discussions of a general nature with men of 
other occupations. 

The preceding discussion of words and their use may seem to you 
more appropriate for an address in a primary school than in a Civil 
Engineers' Club. It was purposely introduced, to call your attention 
to one of the short-comings of the practical engineer. Assuming for 
the sake of argument that it is a short-coming, then who is respon- 
sible for this condition ? It may be the fault of the University, in not 
teaching the subject. Or, if the professors make the excuse that a 
knowledge of the language should be acquired before entering the 
University, it may be their fault that they have not enforced this re- 
quirement. It may be your own fault, in failing to avail yourselves of 
your opportunities in the University and in the preparatory schools. 
Whosesoever fault it is, if you are deficient in this respect, I advise 
you to rectify the deficiency. You can do this on your volition. There 
are many practical engineers who are self educated, and who have 
acquired a good command of language. The means for this acquire- 



BATES. 153 

ment are at hand and consist principally in conversation with those 
who speak correctly, in reading good books, in studying examples of 
well written letters, in a constant use of the dictionary, and in a con- 
sideration of all that one speaks or writes. Many a man who has no 
acquaintance with text books on grammar, has succeeded in acquiring 
a correct use of language by availing himself of these means ; and if 
you keep good company, and read good books, this accomplishment is 
naturally and easily acquired. 

This dissertation on the use of the English language is intended 
to call your attention in a pointed manner to a weakness of the prac- 
tical engineer which has been the subject of frequent criticism, and as 
this is only one of the many faults which are found in him, to prepare 
your minds for the consideration of the general criticism, that the 
engineer, as compared with men in other occupations, is narrow and 
one-sided. I speak now of all engineers, practical and otherwise. 

Let us consider this general criticism. 

If it is without foundation it cannot stand and we can refute it. 
If on the other hand, there is reason for it, we ought to study ourselves 
and remove any causes which warrant it. Speaking from my own 
experience I think the criticism is a just one. I have personally felt 
myself handicapped by fixed ideas, narrow views, and a stubborn pur- 
pose of proving myself to be in the right. Again for the sake of argu- 
ment, let us assume that engineers in general possess these faults, and 
let us look for the causes of them, and seek the remedy for them. 
Is narrowness of mind an inherent quality which leads one to select 
engineering as his vocation? I reject this query with scorn, and only 
mention it to dispose of it at once and altogether. Having progressed 
so far, we know that we must look for the causes outside of the indi- 
vidual. It must then be due to his education, and I think the trouble 
is located in the University. The professors may demolish me for this 
statement, but I have a right to make it; for I am a member of the 
National Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education. I am 
also a member of a National Committee to consider the Status of En- 
gineering Education. I objected to serving on this committee, on 
the ground that I was not a college man, and was jokingly informed that 
it was a case where practical engineers were needed to balance the pro- 
fessors. 

Having made the general statement that the University course, as 
applied to students of engineering, has the effect of graduating men 
who are narrow and one-sided, it is incumbent on me to give my 
reasons for this statement. In the first instance, professors of en- 
gineering are usually specialists, and they generally teach their spe- 
cialties. If one is a master, as he should be, of the special subject 



154 THE PRACTICAL ENGINEER. 

which he teaches, it is natural and to be expected that the importance 
of that subject is magnified in his mind when compared with other 
branches of the science of engineering. In his efforts to impart the 
knowledge of his specialty to the student, the latter forms his opinion 
of the specialty and is much influenced by the personality of the teacher. 
If the subject is one for which the student has an aptitude or liking, 
it obtains a preference in his mind over other subjects. He becomes 
more proficient in it and he attaches more importance to it. This 
criticism applies in a general way to each of the professors constitut- 
ing the Faculty of an engineering college. This Faculty is composed 
of a number of engineers, each one selected for his knowledge of the 
science of engineering, and for his ability to teach some special branch 
of that science. It is an old saying, that it takes nine tailors to make 
a man, and I suppose it takes at least that many professors to make 
an engineer. 

Many years ago I was asked to give an address as a practical en- 
gineer to the students of the civil engineering department of Cornell 
University. I arrived at Cornell the day before my address was to be 
delivered, and was shown through the buildings and introduced to the 
professors. At first I was very much in awe of them, and it seemed 
to me impertinent that I should presume to address students who were 
under the instruction of men, each of whom was a high authority in 
some line of professional knowledge. I was appalled at my own ig- 
norance and wished myself at home. However, as I became acquainted 
with these learned men, I discovered that each one held to his own 
specialty, and was most deferential to his brethren who taught other 
specialties. Then my mind began to clear up regarding them, and I 
reflected that while I could sit at the feet of any one of them and 
be instructed in his specialty, there were lines of practical engineering 
in which I was perhaps more competent to obtain results than he was. 
With this comforting thought I braced up and talked to the young men 
with confidence, as I am now talking to you. Do not, for one moment, 
consider my remarks as in any sense derogatory to engineering profes- 
sors at this or any other University. They command my admiration, 
for among them I see men of undoubted talent and knowledge which 
would bring them far better pecuniary recompense for their labors, 
and far greater appreciation from the public, if they were engaged as 
practical engineers instead of professors. Theirs is an example of true 
devotion to the profession, and doubtless they feel that it is a higher 

grade of work to make engineers than to practice the profession. 

****** *** 

* 

I have recently heard the statement made that the study of mathe- 
matics, and of other subjects which require precise and concentrated 



BATES. 155 

application, has a tendency to cause the mind to move within narrow 
or restricted limits in the direction of such concentrated application. 
How much of truth there is in this statement I am not enough of a 
psychologist to determine, but I can readily understand the possibility 
of some such effect; and if it be granted that it is a fact, instead of 
a possibility, we must look to the Universities to provide the remedy. 

The function of a University is not so much to store a certain 
amount of knowledge in the minds of its students, preparatory to their 
graduation, as it is to qualify them for taking their places in the world 
as men among men. As a corollary of this statement we may say 
that the knowledge of mathematics, and of the use of instruments, 
does not make an engineer. This knowledge is absolutely essential, 
for one cannot be an engineer without possessing it; and to avoid being 
misunderstood, I wish to say, with the utmost emphasis, that it is 
impossible for an engineer to have too thorough a knowledge of any 
thing which is required in the practice of his profession. At the same 
time, if you only know mathematics and the use of your instruments, 
and you enter the actual practice of engineering using the mathematics 
and the instruments to accomplish certain results, you are not practicing 
the profession but reducing the profession to the status of a trade. 
It is a common error among engineers, and particularly among the 
younger men of the profession, to assume that they are only to do in 
practice what they have been taught to do in their study of the pro- 
fession, and to do it in the identical manner in which they have been 
instructed to do it. The engineering profession, rightly considered, 
is an extremely broad one ; and the young engineer, who desires to 
attain eminence, must cultivate breadth of character, of judgment, 
and of methods, to qualify himself for high rank. If he has failed in 
the University in securing this broad education, it is essential that he 
get it after he leaves the University. 

How to make the University course more comprehensive is a prob- 
lem for the professors to solve. My present object is to prove to 
them that the problem exists. If I can do this, and obtain from them 
an admission of the necessity for broadening the course of instruction, 
they will find a way to do it. This necessity is impressed upon me 
by observation of their graduates. These graduates look for employ- 
ment in the lines of work in which they are most interested. They 
remember their favorite study under the influence of the professor 
whom they personally admired, and they desire, if. possible, to follow 
in practice the lines upon which their minds were trained in the Uni- 
versity. They begin as specialists and continue as such. This is com- 
mendable within certain limits, for the range of engineering work is 
so extended that it is necessary to specialize in practice. The objec- 



156 THE PRACTICAL ENGINEER. 

tion to it is that the engineer's mind seems to be closed against 
other specialties. I have known a man of talent, a graduate civil en- 
gineer, who was employed on stress diagrams for truss bridges until 
he seemed to be impressed with the idea that the making of these dia- 
grams was the sum and substance of engineering. The same effect 
may be noticed in men employed in other lines of work. The young 
engineer does not as a rule grasp the opportunities which are ahead of 
him. He may have a remote idea that some day he will be a chief 
engineer, that great works will be under his charge, that important 
questions will be submitted to him for decision, that he will be called 
upon to plan great structures and to solve large problems; but just 
how these honors will come to him he does not know. His mind does 
not go much farther than to think that they will come to him when he 
gets older. He should keep these things before his mind, and work 
toward them, remembering that they come as rewards for those who 
have shown themselves competent to receive them. He should con- 
tinually work and study with the determination to earn these prizes, 
and he should remember that each day's work is a step in that direc- 
tion. If he qualifies himself for advancement, he will find that advanced 
positions are inviting him to appropriate them. He must be broad 
to comprehend and secure these advancements. If he is content merely 
to practice those things which have been taught him, and to secure the 
results which he had been taught that computations and processes will 
bring, and to rest satisfied there, feeling that in this he has done his 
duty, he will be what may be called a Journeyman Engineer, and he will 
not secure this advancement, neither will he be entitled to it. There 
are certain qualities of mind which young engineers do not possess, 
because they have not learned them. One of these is the quality of 
discrimination; the ability to determine between right and wrong, good 
and bad; what should be rejected, what is acceptable; and what is to be 
desired and striven for. In other words, an engineer is not fitted for 
high position unless he is judicious. When a man is working for his 
monthly stipend, with certain fixed duties, or under the direct orders of 
a superior, it is hard for him to realize the value of a judicial mind and 
to train himself for judicious conduct. In a subordinate position he 
cannot appreciate the judicial requirements for an engineer who is 
sufficiently advanced to be in charge of work, and especially to be re- 
sponsible for great undertakings. As he rises in the scale of rank he 
is more and more- of a judge with each degree of advancement; a judge 
of materials, of processes, of expedients, of the qualities of his fellow 
men and of their abilities to do certain things; a judge of general 
effects, and a judge of right relations. The judicial faculty is frequent- 



BATES. 157 

ly the most important of any which is possessed by the engineer at 
the top. This quahty, and the ability to obtain results through judicious 
decisions, may to some extent be inherent in a man, but to a far greater 
extent it is the result of study and practice. This is one of the quali- 
ties which I should like as far as possible to be instilled into the en- 
gineer while he is at the University. It is your duty, young men, to 
consider all of the steps between your present position and one at the 
head of the profession, and to train yourselves continually with the 
purpose of making the latter place your final destination. Look up 
and climb; the way is as open to you as to others. There is no royal 
road to success for an engineer. The way is open to each one of you, 
and your success will depend more upon yourselves than upon all 
other influences combined. While I tell you to look high and strive 
for a place at the top, let me caution you that it is not to be obtained 
by going too fast. You may make a mistake in failing to consider that 
great rewards will be yours if you earn them, and you are equally liable 
to make a mistake in assuming that you will get them without earning 
them. Success means an improvement at each step. You cannot skip 
any of the steps; you must be thorough in everything you do. You 
must be reliable in small as well as in large trusts. There is no 
quality so much appreciated by those who have need of your services, 
and who are in a position to promote your advancement, which is as 
much valued as the quality of reliability. If you leave any gaps behind 
in your progress upward, they may at some inopportune time be a 
snare to you; for when you look backward for the supplies which you 
are depending to be furnished over the road of your past experience, 
they may be wrecked in the gap which you have left, and you may 
find that you have reached the limit of your advancement. In past 
times men have attained distinction as engineers who had no college 
education, and very little school education of any kind. Some of our 
oldest and most respected practitioners belong to that class. These 
same men, however, could not start over and succeed under existing 
conditions. They have the experience which enables them to employ 
men of better education than they received, and are respected on ac- 
count of what they have done; but their class is rapidly, dying off. At 
the present day it is useless for any one, who has a proper ambition 
to be among the first in his vocation, to attempt the engineering pro- 
fession without a University education. Let me encourage you to 
strive for the final purpose of your education, and let me congratulate 
you on the great opportunity for preparation offered you in this Univer- 
sity. 

There is one more specification in the charge against the engineers 
of a narrowness of vision, and it is this, that those of us who are 



158 THE PRACTICAL ENGINEER. 

zealous, over-estimate the value of the profession. I would not, for 
one moment, say that we should not work as hard as we do, nor 
strive as much as we do for great results and for honorable position; 
but let us not forget there are other things beside our profession. I 
love to think of the engineer's profession as a manly one; and yet there 
are claims on our manhood which take precedence of the profession. 
First of all we must remember what is due to our families, and then 
come our duties as citizens; then our duties to our fellow men, and 
among these is our special duty to our brethren in the profession. 
If we are determined to broaden ourselves we must associate with other 
people, and become integral parts of the community. We should 
engage in afl sorts of good works, and we should not neglect an in- 
terest in politics. Take for an example of an engineer's delinquency, 
the performance of his political duties. In so far as I know, most 
engineers do not even vote. Possibly they do not know the names of 
the candidates; or if they do know their names, they may not be aware 
of their principles and policies. If all work and no play makes Jack 
a dull boy, then by analogy the giving up of ourselves wholly to the 
practice of engineering makes us narrow men, and limits our engineer- 
ing opportunities. There is no good reason why an engineer should 
not cultivate and enjoy the society of his fellow men. As a side issue, 
to counteract the narrowing tendency of his exact and exacting occu- 
pation, he should stroll in the fields of literature and art and general 
science. He ought to be familiar with the libraries, the museums, and 
the art galleries to which he has access. He should read the best of 
current literature, and should acquaint himself with history. He 
should study nature and learn its great lessons at first hand. He 
should improve his mind by taking care of his body; and healthful 
exercise, with friendly rivalry in active sports, is good preparation 
for professional work — all this of course within reasonable limits. If 
he plays golf, it is not required that he shall be a golf fanatic; and if 
it is foot-ball, he can afford to stop short of maiming his opponents. 
To be broad he must avoid extremes in all things. The setting of 
one's profession on a pinnacle, to be worshipped as the only real object 
in life, is unwholesome, and it defeats its own ends. Engineers should 
be seen at other places than at a desk, or leaning over a drawing board, 
or squinting through an instrument. They ought to be found where 
their fellow citizens congregate for any purpose affecting the common 
good, and they should take their part in such meetings. 

They should be interested in charity and philanthrophy and should 
have their share with others in movements for promoting the health 
and happiness of mankind. 



SOME RELATIONS OF THE ENGINEER TO SOCIETY. 

By 
Colonel H. G. Prout. 

The author of this address is one of America's most prominent 
engineers. In his younger days he served with distinction in the 
Egyptian army, where he attained the rank of Colonel. For many 
years he edited the Railroad Gazette, returning, however, from his 
editorial work to active professional practice. 

A careful perusal of this scholarly paper must give to the reader 
some conception of the magnitude and importance of the engineering 
profession; and it should also arouse the enthusiasm of engineering 
students and encourage them to do their utmost to become worthy 
members of that profession. The Editors recommend their readers to 
purchase and read the book mentioned by Col. Prout entitled "The 
New Epoch as Developed by the Manufacturer of Power" by the late 
George Shattuck Morison, C. E., for it is one of the great master- 
pieces of engineering literature. Being a copyrighted book, it was not 
practicable to reproduce it in this series of addresses. 

Henry Goslee Prout was born in Fairfax County, Va. He served 
the last two years of the Civil War in the Army of the Potomac, in the 
Wilderness Campaign, the Siege of Petersburg, and the pursuit and 
capture of Lee's Army. He graduated from the University of Michigan 
in 1871 with the degree of C. E. In 1902 Yale University conferred on 
him the honorary degree of A. M. ; and in 1911 he received from the 
University of Michigan the degree of LL. D. 

From 1873 to 1878 he served in the army of the Khedive of Egypt, 
first as Major of Engineers and later as Colonel of the General Staff, 
commanding an expedition in the Soudan and succeeding Gordon as 
Governor General of the Provinces of the Equator. He had afterwards a 
few years of engineering and business experience, and then for sixteen 
years he was editor of the Railroad Gazette; and the high character of 
that paper's editorials and general make-up was due primarily to his 
scholarly taste, engineering ability, high ideals, and painstaking care. 

Since 1903 he has been Vice President and General Manager of the 
Union Switch and Signal Company, dividing his time between his New 
York and Pittsburg offices. 



159 



160 THE ENGINEER AND SOCIETY. 

He is a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, and for 
a long time he took an active interest in the affairs of that organization, 
serving a term as Director. 

Col. Prout, while still in active and hard work, can justly look back 
upon a well and usefully spent life; and his eminent services to the en- 
gineering profession ought to be to him a continual source of profound 
gratification. 

Editors. 



SOME RELATIONS OF THE ENGINEER TO SOCIETY* 

By 
Colonel H. G. Prout. 

In the summer of 1903 an eminent engineer died in New York, Mr. 
George Shattuck Morison. He was a man of broad education and of 
a powerful mind and illustrious achievement. Like most engineers he 
wrote but little, but he left behind him a manuscript which was after- 
wards printed in a book of one hundred and thirty pages, under the 
title of "The New Epoch as Developed by the Manufacture of Power." 
You can read it easily in two hours, but it sums up much of the read- 
ing and meditation of a vigorous and intellectual life. 

Mr. Morison reminds us that students have recognized certain 
great ethnical epochs in the progress of mankind. The use of fire first 
lifted man out of the condition of the animals around him ; then came 
the use of the bow and arrow which further established his superiority. 
The next gre?it step was the i.se of pottery, and man passed from 
savagery to larbarism. T1"e domestication of animals and the manu- 
facture of V m marked two more eras in the development of the race. 
Finally came the use of the written alphabet, the greatest and most 
useful of all human inventions, by which knowledge could be preserved 
and distributed. Progress thus became continuous and great masses 
of mankind were enabled to advance simultaneously along the same 
lines. This was the step from barbarism to civilization, and there the 
ethnical periods are considered to have closed. What has followed is 
assumed to be but the natural advance of civilization. But Mr. Mt)rison 
thinks that there is no apparent reason why other epochs should not 
come, just as distinct and just as important as either of the six which 
are behind us. It but needed the discovery or the development of a 
new capacity to make a new epoch, and such a new capacity came 
with the manufacture of power. By the development of the manufac- 
ture of power man's capacity is suddenly increased beyond any limit 
which the human mind can forsee or imagine. The strength of man or 
the strength of animals no longer sets a boundary to the capacity to do 



*An address delivered at New Haven in the Sheffield Lecture Course, 
February, 1905; at Ithaca at the First Annual Reunion of Civil Engineering 
Alumni of Cornell University, June, 1905; at Wilkinsburg before The Elec- 
tric Club, November, 1905. 

161 



162 THE ENGINEER AND SOCIETY. 

work. Forms of matter are changed, and the forces of nature are 
set to do our bidding, and we can see no stopping place in this pro- 
cess. The power of man to do useful work has been multiplied in 
the last century beyond all computation or imagining. In the last one 
hundred years man's productive capacity has probably advanced more 
than in all the preceding years that he had inhabited this planet, and 
the revolution wrought by the development of the capacity to manufac- 
ture power has just begun; the door has just opened. 

I think it was Mr. John R. Freeman who estimated that in one 
voyage across the Atlantic a steamship develops as much power as 
was developed by hundreds of thousands of men working through 
decades of time to build the great pyramid ; but the biggest ocean ship 
is small compared with the great power factories which we can see all 
around us, and this power is delivered in our houses and in our shops 
and on our railroad tracks, to the immense saving of time and energy. 
It would interest you to try to compute the human effort saved by the 
mere fact that some hundreds of thousands of maids and housewives 
draw water from spigots, where it is delivered from steam pumps, in- 
stead of going to wells. How can we measure the effect on human 
society of the fact that two men in a locomotive cab haul two thousand 
tons of goods or five hundred passengers across half a continent at 
forty miles an hour, or of the fact that every steam hammer in a forge 
shop does the work of a dozen men, and does it better? 

While the capacity of man to do accustomed things has been mul- 
tiplied, he has been empowered to do things that he could not have 
done before. The steel forgings that are made now could not have 
been made at all by man-power or animal-power. Manufactured power 
was necessary to the production of the great structures of to-day — the 
ships, the guns, the bridges, the great engines in the power houses, the 
tall buildings in the cities. Perhaps there are those now before me 
who doubt if human happiness has been increased by the mere capacity 
to produce big things. You will remember Ruskin's ideal society, with 
the happy peasant in a velvet jacket singing in the fields, the heavens 
unpolluted by the smoke of mills and the air unvexed by the noise of 
railroads. Not long ago a professor in a neighboring great university 
maintained with some heat the superiority of the Greek civilization, 
when the mass of the people lived in squalor and built Parthenons, as 
compared with our civilization when the mass of the people are more 
sure of food and clothes and fuel, and build ugly .steel frame Masonic 
Temples. We cannot stop here to discuss the relative value of civili- 
zations, but I make bold to believe that the average of human happiness 
was never so high as now. 



PROUT. 163 

The examples which I have cited only suggest the amount of human 
effort that has been set free by the manufacture of power. My imagi- 
nation is unequal to the task of giving you more than a hint of the 
change in man's condition which has just begun, and even to-day the 
manufacture of power, an art a little more than a century old, is in 
process of evolution. The prime mover of yesterday will not be the 
prime mover of to-morrow. Our methods of using the stored heat 
energy of the sun to-day will be history twenty-five years from now. 

It is less than one hundred and fifty years since Watt made the 
reciprocating steam engine a thing of actual use, and fairly began the 
era of manufactured power. Already the reciprocating steam engine 
is doomed, except for certain special uses. The development of the 
transmission of power by electricity has made it possible to use the 
high efficiency of the steam turbine, and the use of turbo-generators is 
even now large and spreading fast. But the turbine is only a step. 
Its successor is already foreshadowed in the gas engine. Side by side 
with these changes in the type of prime mover advances the art of 
transmitting and using power by electricity ; and so swiftly does the art 
advance that now the day seems close at hand when we may see short 
but important lines of steam railroad of heavy traffic converted to 
electric working. The power houses will be equipped with steam tur- 
bines or with gas engines. Alternating current will be sent out over 
long transmission lines and stepped down and used in the car motors 
without converting. Two great things will be accomplished. Working 
cost will be reduced and the public will have more frequent, cheaper, 
and perhaps swifter service. 

These are a few of the great engineering changes now visible over 
the horizon. If we had time we might speak of others in the fields 
of transportation, of sanitation, and of manufacture, which will possibly 
have even more effect on the wealth and happiness of man than those 
which I have mentioned. For instance, .who can foresee the effect 
of countless small improvements in manufacture which are flowing 
from the swift development of mechanical, electrical, and chemical 
knowledge and skill? And perhaps even greater results will flow from 
improved sanitation saving present waste of human energy. And these 
changes are close at hand. 

We may reasonably suppose that twenty-five years from now, 
when many of the young men now sitting before me are in the full 
tide of their useful work, these United States will have a population 
of one hundred and twenty million. That will be more than the pre- 
sent population of the United Kingdom and France and half of Ger- 
many combined. It will be a free and homogeneous population, more 



10. 



164 THE ENGINEER AND SOCIETY. 

efficiently educated than any people the world has even seen. It will 
be a population of singular daring and enterprise, this for two great 
reasons. For ten generations the Americans have lived under condi- 
tions to develop courage and enterprise; and the immigrants coming to 
our shores must be, generally speaking, class for class, more courage- 
ous and enterprising than those whom they have left behind or they 
would not have come. This population, so vast in numbers, so effi- 
ciently educated, so courageous and enterprising, and so free to work, 
each man in his own way, will be seated in a temperate climate, amongst 
unrivalled resources of soil and mine, in a country intersected by great 
natural waterways and covered with a net work of railroads and with 
a vast coast tine on the two great oceans. Put into the hands of such 
a people, so situated, the means for the manufacture of power and 
their influence on the world, physical, intellectual, and moral, may be 
greater than the influence of the men who built the Roman Empire, 
greater than the influence up to this time of the race which built the 
empire of the English-speaking people. What a glorious thing it is to 
be a young American at the dawn of the new epoch! 

These matters of which I have just been speaking are impor- 
tant. They are occupying much of the best intelligence of the world. 
They are pursued with most admirable enthusiasm and devotion. But 
regarded in a broader way they are only incidents in the general for- 
ward movement of the new epoch. Not only have we entered on 
another ethnical period, but upon the most important period in the 
progress of mankind. It is quite conceivable that a thousand years 
from now men may look back to the 19th and 20th centuries as the most 
significant period in the history of the race. 

Perhaps you begin to wonder where I am coming out, perhaps 
you are already asking what all this has to do with the announced sub- 
ject of my lecture — "Some Relations of the Engineer to Society." 

My proposition is that the engineer, more than all other men, has 
created this new epoch and that the engineer, more than all other men, 
will guide humanity forward until we come to some other period of a 
different kind. On the engineer and. on those who are making engi- 
neers rests a responsibility such as men have never before been called 
upon to face ; for it is a peculiarity of this new epoch that we are 
conscious of it, that we know what we are doing, which was not true 
in either of the six preceding epochs, and we have upon us the respon- 
sibility of conscious knowledge. 

If we are right in the notion that the manufacture of power has 
brought mankind into a new ethnical period; if we are right in the 
notion that the engineer is the man who beyond all other men has 



PROUT. 165 

created the new conditions and who must beyond all other men carry 
them forward in their development, then we are face to face with cer- 
tain facts of tremendous importance to two classes of our fellow citi- 
zens: First, to those who are responsible for the training of youth 
for their work in the world; and, second, to those young men who 
have chosen engineering as their profession. 

The same events and conditions which have created the new epoch 
have affected the plans of education, and, so far as I am qualified to 
judge, those who are training the young men who are to guide the 
human race in the next few decades are working forward in the right 
direction. It is obvious that our aim must always be to acquire a more 
complete and perfect knowledge of the forces of nature, and to this end 
we must have mathematics. Years ago Prof. Bartlett, in the introduc- 
tion to one of his remarkable books, said that the man who is endowed 
with the priceless boon of a copious mathematics possesses the key to 
the external universe. It is my observation of a good many young 
men starting as engineers that their mathematical training is defective. 
Instead of holding a key, they have a feeble grasp on something as vague 
as fog; they have not been trained to use their mathematics as a tool 
for investigation, or for analysis, or for conclusive reasoning. Perhaps 
we may attribute this partly to the survival down to this day of Plato's 
notion that geometry is degraded by being applied to any purposes of 
vulgar utility. 

Close to this is physics. A command of those facts and laws 
which we roughly group under the head of physics is more important 
than a command of mathematics. A mere mathematician cannot be 
an engineer, but a man can be an engineer with limited mathematics 
if he has a working conception of the laws of physics. My favorite 
test of the intellectual power of a boy is to ask how he stands in physics. 
A high stand there is a pretty certain indication of imagination, of 
power to analyze, and of capacity to reason. 

Command of the forces of nature requires besides mathematics 
and physics a specific knowledge of those branches of learning which 
we call the natural sciences. The relative importance of any one of 
these to any one man must depend upon the kind of work which he 
intends to do, but some knowledge of almost all of the natural sciences 
is important to the engineer, and a large and definite knowledge of 
some of them is necessary. 

But mathematics and physics and the natural sciences are not 
the end. If an engineer is to go far, he must have some of those 
studies which give him broad and just ideas of the relations of man 
to man, and of man to society. 



166 THE ENGINEER AND SOCIETY. 

The duties of my life bring me into daily contact with large in- 
dustrial and commercial interests employing many men, and I may say in« 
all sincerity, and with due regard to the meaning of my words, that 
it is far easier to hire engineers than it is to hire men. 

It is my constant observation of four engineering works, employ- 
ing about 20,000 men, that engineers reach the limit of their useful- 
ness from defects of character, rather than from want of technical 
attainments. Our greatest difficulty is to find courage, candor, imagi- 
nation, large vision, and high ambition. I do not know which of these 
qualities is most often lacking, or which is most essential. The lack 
of courage and candor comes most often to my notice, but the lack of 
imagination and of broad outlook produces the most serious disasters. 
All of these things an engineer must have if he is to go far, and 
all of these any citizen must have if he is to go far in the work of 
life. Our scheme of education will be radically defective if it does not 
provide for the development of courage and candor, of imagination and 
broad vision and high ambition. Our scheme of education of the 
engineer and the citizen must also teach our youth something of the 
large mistakes of men and nations in the past and something of their 
successes. Lacking that teaching we see the farmer in Texas and the 
third rate lawyer in Congress and the professional friend of mankind 
in Nebraska re-inventing ancient errors and diverting valuable energy 
from the useful purpose of hoeing corn. It is not for me, not even an 
amateur in education, to say how these things should be reached, but 
I venture a suggestion. 

Scientific study may be in itself a great expander of the imagi- 
nation. You will remember that Prof. Shaler wrote five dramas in 
blank verse to prove this. I am not competent to judge of his demon- 
stration, but at least I venture the assertion that the study of chemistry 
or of biology, of machine design or of analytical geometry, of geology 
and astronomy, is as quickening to the imagination as the study of 
Greek or Latin grammar, of moral philosophy or of rhetoric, or as a 
formal and routine study of English literature. The result is mostly 
dependent on the teacher and not on the thing taught. The quickening 
influence is the human influence. 

This brings me to another suggestion. Gordon used to say that 
it would be better if the young British officers were made to read 
Plutarch's Lives. "There we see men of no true belief, men who are pure 
pagans making their lives a sacrifice as a matter of course. In our 
day it is highest merit not to run away." This is a fertile suggestion 
under which lies a truth of the greatest importance in the scheme of 
education. At this moment we may see Plutarch's men fighting for 



PROUT, 167 

their country on the other side of the world and showing noble devo- 
tion and a lofty idealism, because for centuries and centuries great 
ideals have been held always before them. Admiral Togo's little ad- 
dress to the spirits of the dead the other day in Tokio was a noble 
inspiration to the youth of his nation. It had the very spirit which 
made Plutarch's men immortal. The essential thing is to bring youth 
into habitual and constant contact with great men and great ideas and 
great deeds. Make them read Huxley's Life and Letters and Lord 
Roberts' Forty-one Years in India and Grant's Memoirs. Or, per- 
haps better than any of these, let them read deeply in the story of 
Lincoln's life. There they will find the simple foundation qualities, 
love of truth, courage, patience, and fortitude, tenacity and devotion, 
working in great fields of effort. If these examples do not stir a 
young man, you had better let him go quietly back to hoeing corn. 
He may make a useful, man and a necessary man, but he cannot make 
a great man or even a big man. Huxley has said that the progress of 
mankind has been through the production of men of genius; but society 
cannot deliberately and consciously produce men of genius. They are 
the rare fruit of a thousand uncontrollable conditions, but we can 
deliberately and consciously develop leaders, and the affairs of men 
have never called for leaders so loudly as now. 

I said a while ago that we are face to face with certain facts of 
tremendous importance to those who are training young men for 
engineering, and to those who have chosen engineering as their pro- 
fession. I have suggested a few considerations, more particularly for 
those who are educating the young engineer, and now let us turn to 
the engineer himself. 

It is my proposition that the engineer more than any other man 
has brought about the new epoch which we have now entered upon 
and that he more than any other man is to lead mankind forward in 
the next century or two. But who is this engineer to whom we as- 
sign such a place in human progress? What is engineering? These 
claims, so broad as to seem extravagant, must rest on a broad founda- 
tion. 

You will have observed that of the six great forward steps taken 
by the human race as a race, five were enlargement of his physical 
powers and improvements in his material welfare, through conquests 
over the forces of nature, and the sixth of these great steps worked 
for his advancement by enabling him to preserve and distribute know- 
ledge. Even that step probably had its greatest value in hastening 
the conquest of nature. So we must not be surprised to discover that 
progress is through knowledge of a material universe. 



168 THE ENGINEER AND SOCIETY. 

Some eighty years ago Tredgold made that famous definition of 
engineering which has never been improved upon. It is the art of 
directing the great sources of power in nature to the use and con- 
venience of man. Broadly this definition must include the physicist, 
the chemist, the biologist, the geologist, and the metallurgist, for they 
discover those laws and properties of matter in the knowledge of which 
the engineer must work. Narrowly the engineer is one who, having 
knowledge of the laws and properties of matter, designs and constructs. 
The primitive engineer, the man who had that instinctive feeling for 
the forces of nature and for the properties of matter, and that quality 
of contrivance which must be born in a man if he is to be an engineer 
at all, taught his fellow savages to use fire, to use bows and arrows, 
and to make pottery. Then he taught his fellow barbarians to use 
the strength of the larger animals and to smelt and forge iron. Just 
so the modern engineer using the same heaven«sent qualities is carry- 
ing forward the conquest of nature until he has brought us into this 
last and greatest era, the era of the manufacture of power. 

I shall not stop to name his doings, they are written across the 
face of the earth. You remember what Carlyle says of the English 
"Of all nations the English are the stupidest in speech, the wisest in 
action. Thy epic, unsung in words is written in huge characters on 
the face of this planet — Sea-moles, railways, fleets and cities, Indian 
Empires, America, legible throughout the solar system, England her 
mark." Such, too, is the epic of the engineer written in railways, 
canals and bridges, in fleets and harbors, in water works, roads and 
parks, and finally in the great ultimate struggles of mankind on the 
battle field to save and destroy nations. There, too, the engineer writes 
his tragic poetry. You never thought of him as a poet, did you, and 
yet in the last one hundred years the highest expressions of the creative 
imagination have been in the work of the engineer. 

A few years ago Mr. Abram S. Hewitt said that Sir Henry Bes- 
semer had done more than any other man of his time to destroy the 
power of the privileged classes in Great Britain, that he was the great 
apostle of democracy. Bessemer's service to mankind was to lower 
the cost and increase the quantity of steel and so make possible the 
enormous development of transportation in the last half of the last 
century, which has changed the face of society, and I do not believe Mr. 
Hewitt over-estimated the importance of Sir Henry Bessemer's achieve- 
ment. The wheat that makes a loaf of bread is carried from Dakota 
to New York for one-third of a cent. One day's wages of a mechanic 
will carry from Chicago to Liverpool food to last him a year. Quick 
transportation has cut the peasant loose from the soil of his little 



PROUT. 169 

parish and opened the markets of the whole world for the labor of the 
artisan. All this means that improvement in transportation has been 
one of the powerful forces for preserving and spreading liberty. Thus 
Bessemer was the apostle of democracy. The engineer has made life 
freer and easier, he has helped to destroy arbitrary class distinctions, 
and he has prolonged human life. 

I shall not dwell longer on what the engineer has done. I wish 
especially to take a little time to point out some of the things which 
he is about to do. Bear in mind that in what I shall say I use the 
term "engineer" in its broadest sense to indicate the man of modern 
scientific education and of practical contrivance. Trained in daily con- 
tact with exact and inexorable laws he is becoming more and more a 
leader in large affairs, he is fast taking his place at the head, and 
close to the head, of the great industrial concerns. Mind, I do not 
say that he will displace men of other professions. Men bred to the 
law, men trained in business, will always rise to the top. Superior men 
will make their way to command through many different avenues. 
What I do mean to say is that the education and experience of an en- 
gineer especially fit him for high administrative positions not now 
commonly thought of as engineering work. Carlyle tells us that 
''Frederick the Great's ambassadors are oftenest soldiers. Bred sol- 
diers, he finds, if they happen to have natural intelligence, are the 
fittest for all kinds of work." In Frederick's time engineering as a 
profession did not exist. Soldiering came nearest to it, and there is 
great likeness in the work of the engineer and the soldier and in the 
qualities of mind and character developed in the two callings. Both 
must ascertain physical facts without mistake. Both must analyze and 
weigh evidence and must reason correctly. Both must deal with rela- 
tions of time, space, force, and matter. Both must handle men in 
action. Both must have the restrained and disciplined imagination to 
project clearly conditions and results which they cannot see. Both 
must decide, often very quickly, knowing that on the decision hangs 
success or failure. But this is the training which makes men of 
action — leaders, commanders. No doubt you will agree with much 
that I have just said, but I question if you will quite appreciate the 
gravity of the sudden emergency work which comes in an engineer's 
life. Suppose you are putting down a deep foundation alongside of a 
twelve story building in New York City and the quicksand begins to 
run and the walls of the big building to crack. The peril is not so 
pressing as the peril of battle for you can stop work and think. But 
you must think straight and act right or you will cost someone a lot of 
money, even if you kill no one. Suppose you are putting in a foun- 
dation for a bridge pier in the bottom of the Mississippi and the river 



170 THE ENGINEER AND SOCIETY, 

bed begins to scour and a caisson as big as a house begins to tip and 
to move down stream. A great deal of money depends on what you 
do in the next few hours. Suppose you are putting a tunnel under the 
St. Clair river and the compressed air begins to blow out through a 
pocket in the river bed. Here is an affair of minutes, and of life as 
well as money. These very things have happened and are exactly the 
things that come as a matter of course in an engineer's life, and they 
are met by just the same qualities of courage and stored up skill and 
emergency judgment that you must have ready when the enemy gets 
on your flank. Beyond all this the engineer is, of necessity, a student 
of costs and economics. He must know what it costs to move a yard 
of earth and to put in a yard of concrete and why. He must know 
what it costs to produce a horse power. He has been defined as a 
man who can do well for a dollar what any man can do somehow for 
ten dollars. Beneath all this must lie sleepless fidelity to his trust. 

These are some of the qualities of leadership, obvious, and rec- 
ognized as produced in the contest with nature; but there are others, 
higher ones, not so obvious. I mean the qualities of moral leader- 
ship. Probably you never thought of the engineer as a moral leader, 
and yet I have often thought and said that in a knotty case of applied 
morals I would sooner trust an engineer than any other man. I once 
said this to that famous moralist, the late Speaker Reed. It was ap- 
parently a new thought to him. He reflected as much as a quarter of 
a minute, which was a long time for him. *'Yes," he said, "I guess 
you are right, a minister has no sense of proportion in sin." That 
thought is a little too delicate and complicated for me to follow further, 
but the lawyer is fair game. You will remember the saying of Macau- 
lay on this matter. ''We will not at present inquire whether it be right 
that a man should, with a wig on his head, and a band around his neck, 
do for a guinea what, without these appendages, he would think it 
wicked and infamous to do for an empire; whether it be right that, 
not merely believing but knowing a statement to be true, he should 
do all that can be done by sophistry, by rhetoric, by solemn asserva- 
tion, by indignant exclamation, by gesture, by play of features, by 
terrifying one honest witness, by perplexing another, to cause a jury 
to think that statement false. It is not necessary on the present occa- 
sion to decide these questions." Nor is it necessary for us here to decide 
a question which every law student has debated over and again. For 
my present purpose it is enough to say that the daily practice of a 
profession concerning which such questions can arise puts a man of 
weak mind or weak character in very considerable peril of becoming 
a skillful sophist and a weak moralist. Even in the daily walks of 



PROUT. 171 

business there is frequent temptation to obscure the truth. But the 
man who passes his life in contests with nature is not apt to be a 
sophist. The engineer can have no object in concealing the truth or 
in misusing it. His work is a material fact ; it is not an impression 
upon the minds of other men. No trick of words, no art of speech, 
will make his bridge stand up, or his bearings run cool. No ingenuity 
of argument, no power of rhetoric will save one ounce of coal per 
horsepower-hour. We all know in some vague and abstract way that 
we must yoke our wagon to a star, but the engineer must do it. The 
law which guides him is not the product of the schools and the courts, 
it is not the product of changing standards of life and thought; it is 
the eternal law of nature. So far as he finds it and follows it he suc- 
ceeds; so far as he misses it he fails, and there is no escape for him. 
Nature always stands watching him, neither kind nor cruel, but per- 
fectly just — swift, inexorable, and inevitable — at once his guide and 
his judge. Who else of all mankind has a discipline so fine? Reward 
is so prompt, punishment is so swift and sure. Emerson has said — 
"The mind that is parallel with the laws of Nature will be strong with 
their strength." 

I have pointed out some of the special and peculiar qualifications 
of the engineer for leadership. There is another which he enjoys in 
common with other professions. I mean that which we may call the 
professional spirit. It often seems to me that some of the great dan- 
gers to the social order which we see around us will be lessened, not 
cured but lessened, by the growth of the influence of the professional 
man in affairs. We are worried about the growth of corporate power. 
I don't believe that corporations are worse managed than they used to 
be, but they are bigger and stronger and we hear more about them, 
as we hear more about most things. However all that may be, we shall 
not change human nature by law, and corporate nature is human 
nature. I see much good to come from the growth of the professional 
spirit in corporate management. The professional spirit is in its essence 
the sense of trusteeship. When the professional man takes in trust 
the affairs of his client, that trust becomes more binding upon him than 
his own personal interests. I am often amazed when I think of. the 
vital force of this professional spirit of trusteeship. I am often aston- 
ished when I think of the great number of very common-place men 
who work along year by year with sustained devotion to a true stand- 
ard of professional duty. It confirms my faith in the notion that the 
mass of mankind like to do their duty if they can only know what it 
IS, and that the mass of mankind desire the approbation of noble minds. 
It is my impression that the true professional spirit is at least as strong 



172 THE ENGINEER AND SOCIETY. 

amongst engineers as in any other profession, and I am often tempted 
to think that it is stronger. Here then we see still another reason to 
look forward to the leadership of the engineer. 

Those of you who have been dozing or wandering while I have 
talked and who have caught only the high spots will have received the 
impression that I have been claiming the earth and the fullness there- 
of for a small group of our fellowmen who have chanced to band 
themselves in a certain profession. My real purpose has been to call 
attention to the commanding importance in the advancement of man- 
kind of a certain sort of training, and I had hoped that the presenta- 
tion of this thought, while not at all novel or original, might have a 
certain interest to you, gathered in the shadow of this noble university, 
and especially to the young men. 

I have said that the engineer brought about this seventh epoch in 
the progress of the human race, the era of manufactured power, but 
I am not sure but we should go back three hundred years to Lord 
Bacon. It was Bacon's purpose to teach man to gain command over 
nature, and he taught that this could be only by diligently learning the 
truth and then following it. And this is the real significance of the 
engineer as an ethnical force; he must know the truth and live by it. 
Bacon was not the first man to observe natural facts correctly and to 
reason from them simply and boldly. The savage engineer who 
taught his fellows to make fire must have done that. But Bacon roused 
great numbers of men to the dignity and value of natural knowledge. 
And I would ask you to remember, and especially the young men, that 
knowledge of man and his deeds and motives is a branch of natural 
knowledge. If we are to help mankind forward in this new era on 
which we have entered, we must gain positive knowledge, and we must 
vitalize it by contact with great characters and great events. We must 
get command of the sources of power in nature and then within our- 
selves, we must have courage and candor, fortitude, tenacity and imagi- 
nation, and devotion ; and the greatest quality of all is devotion. 



THE COLLEGE GRADUATE AS AN ENGINEER. 

By 

Dr. Alex. C. Humphreys. 

It is quite possible that this address of Dr. Humphreys is some- 
what too abstract and difficult of comprehension for the average stu- 
dent: nevertheless a careful study of it cannot fail to enlarge the 
reader's mental grasp of the subject of engineering education. It will 
also give emphasis to the statements of several of the other authors, 
and will impress upon the student the importance of a number of special 
studies in engineering curricula. 

The quotations from Dr. Eliot are classic and, therefore, worthy 
of serious consideration. 

The business aspects of this address are especially commended to 
the engineer-student, as they constitute the most characteristic or 
special feature of Dr. Humphreys' system of imparting engineering- 
instruction. 

Editors. 



173 



THE COLLEGE GRADUATE AS AN ENGINEER. 

By 
Dr. Alex. C. Humphreys. 



Our progress in the industrial arts has of late been so marked 
as to raise the United States to the first rank as an industrial power. 
Our relative progress has excited earnest inquiry among the statesmen 
and educators of other countries to determine the causes therefor. It 
has come to be acknowledged that among these causes must be in- 
cluded technical education, and we have for a year and more been 
receiving visits from commissions and individuals from abroad charged 
with the duty of investigating our systems and methods. While among 
ourselves this subject has been receiving the attention it deserves, and 
manufacturers, engineers, and educators have been most active in its 
discussion, looking to the eliminating or minimizing of faults and the 
further development of the good points of the systems and methods 
followed, there are still to be found many high in authority who re- 
fuse to concede to technical education the position it deserves and who 
fail to see that the study of the subjects included in the engineer-stu- 
dents' curriculum may serve to broaden and cultivate as well as to make 
efficient. 

I am sorry to say that I have more than once been obliged to listen 
to the applause called forth by attacks on technical education con- 
tained in addresses delivered before assemblies largely composed of 
professional educators. By those who thus assume an unfriendly atti- 
tude towards technical education it seems to be taken for granted that 
this special training is necessarily opposed to culture studies. No 
doubt some reason for this distrust can be found in the excessive 
specialization at one time to be generally found in our technical courses 
and still, unfortunately, to be found in some; but I contend that where 
this special training is wisely provided for only a necessary discrimi- 
nation is exercised in the specialization and the result no more tends 
to produce narrow men than does the old B. A. course. I do not 
affirm that the best engineering course necessarily produces the culti- 
vated man, nor can this be claimed for any course of study. 

By those who elect thus to sit in judgment on the engineer, ap- 
parently it is assumed that he is necessarily engaged with material 

175 



176 COLLEGE GRADUATE AS ENGINEER, 

things only and that it is reserved to those who more exclusively fol- 
low the humanities to take part in the higher things of life. By some 
the opinion seems to be held that the engineer is a man who confines 
himself to the occupations that require the constant wearing of over- 
alls. Confusion exists in the minds of some as to the functions of the 
engineer as compared with those of the mechanic. 

In setting before you the claims of the engineer as a member of 
a profession I have no intention of casting reflections on those who 
earn their living by manual labor. I hold that the first duty of every 
man is to be a producer so that he and his shall not be a burden upon 
the community and still further that he may contribute his quota to the 
common purs6 for the support of the Government and the support of 
those who, for one reason or another, are actually incapable of carry- 
ing even their own weight. Any man, be he cultured or uncultured, 
who honestly performs his duty in this connection need not be ashamed 
to look the world in the face. 

Our views may vary as to our responsibilities with regard to the 
hereafter, but there should be no question as to the duty of first hon- 
estly and courageously meeting the present responsibilities of this life. 
Apparently there are those who hold that the present and evident duties 
can be neglected or wholly pushed out of sight that they may the more 
completely devote themselves to the contemplation of their responsi- 
bilities with regard to the hereafter. 

If I am right in believing that the time we are permitted to spend 
on this earth is one of preparation and development for something 
higher, then nothing of the present can be neglected and the educa- 
tion of those who are to take part in the world's work becomes a 
solemn responsibility. 

From this point of view it is unprofitable to make comparisons as 
to the relative importance of the several professions or vocations. All 
legitimate vocations are important, and the world's work, to be in 
balance, requires the honest, intelligent filling of all. Some produce 
in a material way; others produce through their imagination, and their 
product serves to uplift, encourage, and sustain those engaged in the 
more material callings. 

The man who faithfully works to the limit of his powers and op- 
portunities, no matter how lowly his vocation may be, rises superior to 
the man of greater or more refined powers and larger opportunities 
who does only a part of that of which he is capable. This may be 
trite, but my experience in widely differing lines is constantly showing 
me that this truth if recognized is not heeded and, as a result, the 
faithful worker is unfavorably compared with the brilliant idler. 



HUMPHREYS. \77 

But the engineer's vocation is not a lowly one. In the certificate 
of membership of the great Institution of Civil Engineers of Great 
Britain appears the following: 

"A Society established for the general advancement of Mechani- 
cal Science and more particularly for promoting the acquisition of that 
species of knowledge which constitutes the profession of a Civil Engi- 
neer, being the art of directing the great sources of power in Nature 
for the use and convenience of Man." 

God — or, if you prefer. Nature — has placed in our hands certain 
materials and forces. These must first be apprehended, analyzed, and 
measured; and here is the field of the scientific investigator, the man 
of research. 

It is for the engineer to take the knowledge thus furnished to him 
by the men of pure science and apply it so as best to meet the wants 
of his fellow men. The engineer must have such a knowledge of the 
fundamentals of science as will enable him to apply efficiently the work 
of the scientist. Sometimes we find an engineer more richly endowed 
with scientific imagination, turning from the work of application to 
original research. Sometimes, yes often, the scientist is directed into 
new lines by the engineer's specific statement of the need for further 
knowledge ; and again, the scientist frequently builds and corrects his 
theories on the practical experiences of the engineer. The tremendous 
advance made during the last twenty years in electrical science is a 
notable example of such collaboration. 

No sharp line can be drawn between the man of pure science and 
the man of applied science. The engineer of today must have a general 
knowledge of science and he must have a full knowledge of and be 
capable of practically applying the laws of Nature in at least one little 
corner of the great field of engineering. For now it has come to pass 
that no man can hope to be an authority over the whole wide field of 
engineering. 

The engineer-student today must be so trained in the fundamentals 
of science and so trained in Mathematics that he can after graduation 
quickly and safely further specialize within his specialty of engineering. 
In our colleges we cannot make engineers, but we can prepare the 
students to profit thoroughly and promptly by their opportunities in the 
school of practice. 

The institution of which I have the honor to be President has 
for its title "The Stevens Institute of Technology," with the secondary 
title of "A School of Mechanical Engineering." 

One might then suppose that our work would be found to be as 
closely specialized as is possible. A glance over the list of our Alumni 



178 COLLEGE GRADUATE AS ENGINEER. 

shows at once that our training has fitted our men fundamentally for 
quite different lines of engineering work. In this list we find officers 
of railroads, superintendents of iron and steel mills, electric light engi- 
neers, electric railway engineers, manufacturers of electrical apparatus, 
gas engineers, specialists in steam, marine engineers, designers and 
builders of various kinds of engines, hydraulic engineers, bridge builders, 
sugar manufacturers, refrigerating engineers, oil refiners, locomotive 
builders, superintendents of copper refineries, manufacturers of instru- 
ments, superintendents of paper mills, manufacturers of textile machin- 
ery, mining engineers, etc., etc. The same college course furnished to 
each of these men a solid foundation upon which to build the super- 
structure required for his selected vocation. 

It is true that in Technical Schools this concentration on a single 
course of study is rather the exception. At the Massachusetts Insti- 
tute of Technology, for example, the students follow the same lines for 
part of the course, and then they begin further to specialize as electri- 
cal engineers, mechanical engineers, civil engineers, naval engineers, 
mining engineers, architects, etc. But even where there has been this 
more definite specialization within the limits of the college course, a 
further specialization and training in detail is required after gradua- 
tion. 

Before considering a department of study which should be includ- 
ed in every engineering course, let me for a moment again refer to the 
question — Does the education of an engineer necessarily exclude cul- 
ture studies? President Eliot, of Harvard, can be taken as a notable 
example of the man of culture. He is also an authority of weight on 
questions of education. I leave my case then in the hands of Presi- 
dent Eliot, though I could call in to my support many others of the 
prominent educators of our country, notably President Butler, of Col- 
umbia. 

I quote from an address delivered this summer by President Eliot 
before the New England Educational Association, published in full in 
"The World's Work'' of August, and published in condensed form in 
"Science" of July 17th, under the title of "The New Definition of the 
Cultivated Man." I hope that by listening to these quotations some of 
you will be led to read the entire address. 

"There are two principal differences between the present ideal" 
(of general cultivation) "and that which prevailed at the beginning of 
the Nineteenth Century. All thinkers agree that the horizon of the 
human intellect has widened wonderfully during the past hundred 
years, and that the scientific method of inquiry, which was known to 
but very few when the Nineteenth Century began, has been the means 



HUMPHREYS. 179 

of that widening, • This method has become indispensable in all fields 
of inquiry, including psychology, philanthropy, and religion; and, there- 
fore, intimate acquaintance with it has become an indispensable element 
in culture." 

****** **** 

"I need not say that within that century what we call science, pure 
and applied, has transformed the world as the scene of the human 
drama ; and that it is this transformation which has compelled the recog- 
nition of natural science as a fundamental necessity in liberal educa- 
tion." 

"A second modification of the earlier idea, of cultivation was advo- 
cated by Ralph Waldo Emerson more than two generations ago. He 
taught that the acquisition of some form of manual skill and the prac- 
tice of some form of manual labor were essential elements of culture." 

"The idea of culture has always included a quick and wide sym- 
pathy with men; it should hereafter include sympathy with Nature, 
and particularly with its living forms — a sympathy based on some 
accurate observation of Nature. The book-worm, the monk, the isolated 
student, has never been the type of cultivated man. Society has seemed 
the natural setting for the cultivated person, man or woman; but the 
present conception of real culture contains not only a large develop- 
ment of this social element, but also an extension of interest and rever- 
ence to the animal creation and to those immense forces that set the 

earthly stage for man and all related beings." 

****** **** 

"Let us proceed to examine some of the changes in the idea of 
culture, or in the available means of culture, which the last hundred 
years have brought about. 

1. "The moral sense of the modern world makes character a more 

important element than it used to be in the ideal of the cultivated man." 
****** **** 

2. "A cultivated man should express himself by tongue and pen 
with some accuracy and elegance; therefore linguistic training has had 
great importance in the idea of cultivation. The conditions of the 
educated world have, however, changed so profoundly since the revival 
of learning in Italy that our inherited ideas concerning training in 
language and literature have required large modifications. In the year 
1400 it might have been said with truth that there was but one lan- 
guage of scholars, the Latin, and but two great literatures, the Hebrew 
and the Greek. Since that time, however, other great literatures have 



11 



180 COLLEGE GRADUATE AS ENGINEER. 

arisen, the Italian, Spanish, French, German, and above all the English, 
which has become incomparably the most extensive and various and 
the noblest of literatures. Under these circumstances it is impossible 
to maintain that a knowledge of any particular literature is indispen- 
sable to culture." 



"The linguistic and literary element in cultivation therefore abides, 
but has become vastly broader than formerly — so broad, indeed, that 
selection among its fields is forced upon every educated youth. 

3. 'The next great element in cultivation to which I ask your at- 
tention is acquaintance with some parts of the store of knowledge 
which humanity in its progress from barbarism has acquired and laid 
up." 

********** 
"It is too vast for any man to master, though he had a hundred 
lives instead of one ; and its growth in the Nineteenth Century was 
greater than in all the thirty preceding centuries put together." 
* * * * * * * * ** 

"Culture, therefore, can no longer imply a knowledge of every- 
thing. It must be content with general knowledge of some things, and 
a real mastery of some small portion of the human store. Here is a 
profound modification of the idea of cultivation, which the Nineteenth 
Century has brought about. What portion or portions of the infinite 
human store are most proper to the cultivated man? The answer must 
be — those which enable him, with his individual personal qualities, to 
deal best and sympathize most with Nature and with other human 
beings. It is here that the passion for service must fuse with the 
passion for knowledge." 

"We have learned from Nineteenth Century experience that there 
is no field of real knowledge which may not suddenly prove contribu- 
tory in a high degree to human happiness and the progress of civili- 
zation, and therefore acceptable as a worthy element in the truest 
culture. 

4. "The only other element in cultivation which time will permit 
me to treat is the training of the constructive imagination. The imagi- 
nation is the greatest of human powers, no matter in what field it works 
— in Art or Literature, in mechanical invention, in science, government, 
commerce, or religion: and the training of the imagination is, there- 
fore, far the most important part of education." 



HUMPHREYS. 181 

"Contrast this kind of constructive imagination" (he has been 
referring to Zola's La Bete Humaine) "with the kind which conceived 
the great wells sunk in solid rock below Niagara that contain the tur- 
bines that drive the dynamos that generate the electric force that turns 
thousands of wheels and lights thousands of lamps over hundreds of 
square miles of adjoining territory; or with the kind that conceives the 
sending of human thoughts across three thousand miles of stormy sea 
instantaneously on nothing more substantial than ethereal waves. There 
is no crime, cruelty, or lust about these last two sorts of imagining. 
No lurid fire of hell or human passion illumines their scenes. They are 
calm, accurate, just, and responsible, and nothing but beneficence and 
increased human well-being results from them." 

"That great century (the Nineteenth) has taught us that, on the 
whole, the scientific imagination is quite as productive for human ser- 
vice as the literary or poetic imagination." 

"It results from this brief survey that the elements and means of 
cultivation are much more numerous than they used to be; so that it 
is not wise to say of any one acquisition or faculty — with it cultivation 
becomes possible, without it impossible." 

** * jK * * * * * * 

"On the other hand, is there any single acquisition or faculty which 
is essential to culture, except indeed a reasonably accurate and refined 
use of the mother tongue?" 

"There has always been difficulty in defining culture. In the past 
the definition offered was often narrow and insufficient." 

The time had arrived for the statement of a new and broader 
definition of culture, and President Eliot opportunely met the require- 
ment. I have therefore felt warranted in quoting at some length from 
his masterly address, for I know I may serve you best by practically 
forcing on your attention that which the pressure of other duties might 
influence you to neglect. 

Now the question is do the courses of study offered by the best 
of our separate engineering schools and by our university schools of ap- 
plied science sufficiently include culture studies as defined by President 
Eliot? 

To-day the engineer should be trained in theory and in practice. 

Such progress has been made during the last thirty years in tech- 
nical education that it seems like quoting from ancient history to go 
back a half century. But we find that Prof. Rankine, of the University 



182 COLLEGE GRADUATE AS ENGINEER. 

of Glasgow in his "Preliminary Dissertation on the Harmony of Theory 
and Practice in Mechanics," first delivered in two addresses in the winter 
of 1855-6 and published as the preface to his "Applied Mechanics," 
pointed out the necessity on the part of the educated engineer, of a 
complete training in theory and practice; and that, no longer must the 
fallacy be held that there is "a double system of natural laws; one 
theoretical, geometrical, rational, discoverable by contemplation, ap- 
plicable to celestial, aetherial, indestructible bodies, and being an object 
of the noble and liberal arts; the other practical, mechanical, empirical, 
discoverable by experience, applicable to terrestrial, gross, destructible 
bodies, and being an object of what were once called the vulgar and 
sordid arts." - 

Rankine closes his dissertation with these words: — 

"Thus it is that the commonest objects are by science rendered 
precious ; and in like manner the engineer or the mechanic, who plans 
and works with understanding of the natural laws that regulate the 
results of his operations, rises to the dignity of a Sage." 

To those of you who are particularly interested in either pure or 
applied science, let me strongly recommend to you a careful study of 
this dissertation of Rankine's. The man of science and the engineer 
are often required to meet fallacies ; on such occasions Rankine's Dis- 
sertation may serve as a safeguard from fatal error. 

For many years there has been a contest, which has not yet entirely 
ended, between those who contend that to be practical one must not 
be theoretical, and those who contend that to be scientific one must not 
be practical. This contention has not always been so bluntly stated, 
but that is what is meant when some say — we do not want scientific 
engineers, we want practical engineers ; and when others say, we do not 
want practical engineers, we want scientific engineers. Both of these 
parties have failed to appreciate that the engineer must be capable of 
practically applying scientific knowledge. Especially in the United 
States it is now coming to be generally appreciated that the engineer 
must not only know but he must be able to do. 

Discredit has been brought upon the engineering profession be- 
cause some of its members have not been sure of their theories before 
they commenced to apply them; because others have been credited with 
a scientific training while they were weak in the very fundamentals of 
science and mathematics; because others with a fairly complete know- 
ledge of science and mathematics have been deficient in practical ability 
and experience; and because others have been unable or unwilling 
to appreciate that engineering practice must conform to commercial con- 
ditions and requirements. 



HUMPHREYS, 183 

Still another opportunity for unfavorable criticism by practical 
business men has been given by the lack of a proper disciplinary con- 
trol of the students so often to be found in our colleges, with the re- 
sult that not infrequently the employer finds it far more difficult to lick 
into shape the college graduate than he does the boy from the high 
school. The boy goes from the control of the school and naturally sub- 
mits to the control of the office ; too often the college graduate has 
been demoralized by four years of college license and so is unwilling 
to submit to office discipline. This can be corrected only when faculties 
and students recognize that the same laws are intended to govern those 
in the college and those outside, and that the breaking of the law can- 
not be excused on the plea that only a little fun was intended. While 
this criticism applies to some graduates of our schools of engineering, 
I believe it applies in a greater degree to other college graduates. This 
difference is perhaps accounted for by the facts that a majority of en- 
gineering students enter college with the definite purpose of preparing 
themselves for a selected vocation and having entered the}^ are worked 
so hard that there is not much time or energy left for foolishness and 
lawlessness. 

Undoubtedly our colleges have been also in part responsible for the 
discredit which has been brought upon the engineering profession 
through the causes first mentioned. In some cases the course of study 
has been too closely specialized, too much attention has been 
devoted to the details of technical training and too little to the 
fundamentals of science and mathematics and to the more general and 
more broadening studies. There has been too much of a tendency 
to stuff the students- with facts when rather their reasoning powers 
should have been more thoroughly trained to apply principles to cases. 

Now a reaction has set in, if we may judge from the public utter- 
ances of many of our prominent educators. If so, then we must see to 
it that we do not go to the other extreme by making our courses of 
instruction too broad and too general and so fail to give our engineer- 
students that special and exact training in the fundamentals which 
they certainly require before all else. We must above all things be 
thorough. Even in the interest of culture, there can be no advantage, 
on the one hand, in omitting this exact and thorough feature of the 
training nor, on the other hand, in so crowding the curriculum that the 
store of knowledge offered cannot, within the four years, be assimilated 
and systematized for use. 

We must then resist the pressure constantly felt to introduce new 
matter into our courses. We must appreciate that many of the things 
thus pressed upon our attention are only new applications of the same 



184 COLLEGE GRADUATE AS ENGINEER. 

fundamental principles. If we decide that these newer applications are 
more important than some others already included, we must recognize 
the necessity for selection and we must eliminate the old as we intro- 
duce the new. 

Every engineer-student should be given full opportunity to learn 
that for true success in his profession he must after graduation take up 
a post-graduate course of study, and that probably the best post-gradu- 
ate course will be followed in connection with his work as a wage 
earner in some one part of the field of engineering. Engineering post- 
graduate work in college is only possible for a small minority and it is 
doubtful if the advantages outweigh the disadvantages in the case of the 
large majority. There are certain necessary things to be learned only 
by contact with the working world. 

Nor need this later closer specializing be necessarily narrowing if 
the man has been previously broadly (not superficially) trained. 

The training in the fundamentals of science and mathematics (the 
theory) should be constantly harmonized with the training in the labora- 
tories and shops (the practice) ; and the connection between these two 
branches should be constantly emphasized by the work in the depart- 
ment of Mechanical Drawing, which can well be made a strong con- 
necting link. 

To these should be added one or two modern languages and as 
much as possible of the mother tongue and its literature. The study of 
English should be kept in mind in each of the other departments and 
should be finally kept prominently in view in connection with the writ- 
ing of the graduation thesis, which should be a business-like report on 
some experiment, investigation, or construction. And the engineer- 
student should not be graduated until he has given proof in his thesis of 
the thoroughness and breadth of his training and of his ability to ex- 
press himself clearly and explicitly. 

Now let me refer to one other feature which in my opinion should 
be included in the curricula of schools of engineering. A failure to do 
so has been a fruitful source of distrust of the engineer on the part of 
the manufacturer and the man of business. I refer to instruction in 
business methods. I do not refer to such a superficial treatment of the 
subject as will enable young engineers more quickly to take up posi- 
tions as salesmen of machinery and apparatus, but I refer to that 
broader training in business affairs which every man must sooner or 
later acquire if he is to be a leader. 

I contend that even the man who is to stick closely to the technical 
side of his profession must know of the limitations and conditions under 
which his technical knowledge is to be made available for those who 
wish to buy his knowledge. 



HUMPHREYS. 185 

The engineer should know the principles at least of Accounting 
unless he is to be absolutely dependent for the record of the financial 
results of his work on the unchecked statements of a bookkeeper. Fre- 
quently cases arise in engineering work and in manufacturing where 
the accountant alone is not competent to determine whether the final 
result has created a profit or a loss. 

We have only to think of the grave responsibility to others, per- 
haps innocent and dependent investors, to see that this brings in a 
consideration far above things material. 

The daily press has lately shown us how the lack of a combina- 
tion of business and technical training in the persons of responsible 
heads of industrial concerns has brought loss to many innocent people. 

The early history of our United States railroads is filled with the 
records of financial disaster which might have been avoided if a com- 
bination of engineering knowledge and accounting skill had been exer- 
cised to produce correct statements of profit and loss which in turn 
should have prevented the impairment of capital by the payment of 
unearned dividends. 

Then the engineer should be capable of following up in detail the 
records of shop cost. Further, he should be capable of outlining a 
system for the keeping of shop cost records. In some large establish- 
ments the keeping of shop cost is a matter of great complexity, and 
many a concern has been ruined because this fact has not been soon 
enough realized. 

The engineer should be warned against the dangers to be en- 
countered in the drawing of specifications and contracts ; he should be 
taught that the annoyances and losses involved in lawsuits are most 
easily to be avoided by the exercise of care and skill in the writing of 
such papers, yes, and in the dictating of the routine correspondence. 

In this connection may well be included in the engineering course 
some lectures in commercial law and especially the law of contracts — 
not with the idea that the student shall be encouraged to be his own 
lawyer, for this he should be warned against, but that he shall the 
better be able to avoid the necessity for a lawyer's services. 

To give the student more interest in the study of English it should 
be constantly kept before him in the several departments that only 
through a fairly complete command of the mother tongue can he hope 
to make available the knowledge and training he is acquiring in those 
departments. 

The engineer-student should also be shown that the preparing of 
correct estimates of cost is something which his employer or associates 
have the right to demand. Then it should be shown to him that in most 
cases such estimates can only be made where the correctness of past 



186 COLLEGE GRADUATE AS ENGINEER. 

records of cost can be absolutely relied upon. And it should be. here 
again shown that the keeping of such records is something of more or 
less complexity and frequently not to be compassed by a man who 
IS only an accountant or only an engineer. 

The business man has been too often given the right to regard 
engineers' estimates with suspicion — and this has been because the en- 
gineer has been insufficiently equipped to meet reasonable business re- 
quirements. 

Again, in this connection the engineer-student should be given some 
insight into the value of data and statistics and warned of the dangers 
to be encountered in their partial reading. It is the duty of the engi- 
neer to see tHat figures do not lie, and this can be done only by exercis- 
ing every possible care in the collecting and the interpreting of data. 

Again, the engineer, if he is to be a safe guide for investors of 
capital must be keenly alive to the fact that all kinds of plant depreci- 
ate and that to prevent impairment of capital this depreciation must 
be correctly measured and provision made to compensate therefor out 
of the annual profits; and that otherwise the capital is impaired. Here 
perhaps as much or more than in any other one direction does the train- 
ing of the accountant need to be supplemented by that of the engineer, 
or vice versa. 

The engineer-student should also be instructed as to the relative 
rights of capital and labor, and no effort should be spared in this and 
other connections to show him that the Golden Rule is the only rule to 
follow, even if he is not to rise in his motives above the plane of 
expediency. Capital today justly has cause for serious complaint against 
labor, but it is to be remembered that in the past there have been pro- 
vocations offered to labor so that we may be reminded to avoid such 
provocations in the future. Into the hands of the trained engineers 
will in the future largely fall the management of our industrial prop- 
erties; an examination of the alumni lists of our prominent schools 
of engineering will show how rapidly this is coming to pass. Under 
the circumstances, a great responsibility rests upon our engineering 
schools, for on the results of their work as found in the persons of 
their graduates will largely depend the building up and the maintaining 
of such a spirit of mutual confidence and good will between labor and 
capital as is necessary to the well-being of our country. 

Those who are ready to criticize technical education in general 
are even more ready to criticize the addition of instruction in business 
methods as tending to make engineering less professional and more 
sordid. 

A certain class of culture faddists, losing sight of proportion, 
argues that commercialism should be excluded from the higher institu- 



HUMPHREYS. 187 

tions of learning. Culture is to be admired and we are all prompt to 
render homage to the cultivated man who is also an active, intelligent 
and unselfish worker for good. But daily our experiences are showing 
us that there are men who having enjoyed full opportunities for culture 
have only laid on a veneer which when penetrated discloses selfishness 
and inefiiciency. 

No possible training can ensure against either open boorishness 
or culture-veneered selfishness. 

But I contend that in adding instruction in business methods to 
the engineer-students' technical training we are increasing the chances 
of developing our students as all-around men. It is a decided step in 
the direction of culture if we can lead our subject to look at things 
from all points of view and especially from that of the other man. 

It is right then that we should point out to the engineer-student 
how he can best do his whole duty to his employer, to his employees, 
and to the community. 

It is right that he should be convinced, if possible, that he cannot 
be a law unto himself, that he must be a faithful and efficient servant, 
and that this can be done only when he conforms to legitimate business 
customs and requirements. 

By reason of the faith that will be put in him. primarily through his 
professional diploma he should be shown his responsibility to his Alma 
Mater. 

Again, it is chiefly in connection with instruction in the business 
end of his calling that he can be warned of the temptations to which, 
if at all successful, he will be subjected: viz., to certify to statements 
which are known to him to be false or which he has not himself fully 
investigated; temptations to make incorrect estimates to induce the first 
investment of capital; temptations to "skimp" designs or construction 
to save a profit for himself ; temptations to gain privileges or conces- 
sions by corrupting others; and many other temptations which are con- 
tinually presenting themselves to the man whose special ability as an 
expert leads others more or less blindly to trust to his statements? 

Again, in the discussion of such an apparently matter-of-fact sub- 
ject as statistics or data there is the opportunity to impress upon the 
student the responsibility for seeing that figures are not permitted to 
lie, or still worse made to lie; that to ensure the honest employment of 
data constant vigilance must be exercised; that especially should the in- 
vestigator guard himself against a too ready acceptance of facts and 
figures which tend to confirm him in preconceived opinions. And here 
the warning should be extended against the dishonesty of accepting and 
quoting any statement of opinion unless it is as carefully conditioned 
and safeguarded by the context as in the original expression. 



188 COLLEGE GRADUATE AS ENGINEER. 

So great are the opportunities for a man who has had experience 
in the fields of engineering and business to do good to engineer-stu- 
dents in this direction, so great are the opportunities to put before them 
high ideals of professional honor, that this branch of the work should 
only be entrusted to a man who has had these experiences and who has 
a real appreciation of his responsibility for the future welfare of those 
entrusted to his guidance. 

Finally, I do not claim that such a course of training as I have 
briefly outlined necessarily produces the trained engineer and the culti- 
vated gentleman, but I do claim that such a course can turn out such a 
product where the raw material offered is capable of such cultivation. 
And as far "as cultivation is concerned nothing more can be claimed 
for any college course. 



THE STUDY OF ENGINEERING. 
By 

Professor William H. Burr. 

A book of this kind would not be complete without a specimen of 
the technical literature of Mr. Burr, whose fame as an engineer, a 
mathematician, a technical writer, and an instructor is world-wide. 
Unfortunately, he has written very little that is suitable for the Editors' 
purpose, most of his literary productions (barring his text-books) hav- 
ing been prepared for practicing engineers. This paper, however, is 
eminently suitable, dealing as it does with the broad field of technical 
education and the applicability thereof in numerous branches of activity 
closely allied to engineering. 

Coming from such a high authority as they do, the teachings of this 
address ought to produce a convincing effect upon the reader's mind, 
and the elegance and force of the English used render the paper a 
model for engineering writing. 

William Hubert Burr was born at Watertown, Connecticut, July 
14, 1851, and was graduated from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 
in 1872 with the degree of Civil Engineer. After four years of general 
practice, he accepted the chair of Rational and Technical Mechanics at 
Rensselaer, where he taught until 1884, when he took the position of 
Assistant to the Chief Engineer of the Phoenix Bridge Company, becom- 
ing later its General Manager. 

In 1892 and 1893 he was Professor of Engineering at Harvard 
University, and since 1893 he has been Professor of Civil Engineering 
at Columbia University, at the same time attending to a large and im- 
portant private practice as consulting engineer in various lines of con- 
struction. He has held and still holds many lucrative official positions 
in New York City, and he has served on several National Commissions 
of great importance, including two of those for the Isthmian Canal. 

He is a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers and of 
the Institution of Civil Engineers of Great Britain, and is the author 
of numerous papers and several books on engineering subjects, all of 
which are regarded by the profession as authoritative. 

Prof. Burr's career as an engineer is one of the most successful 
on record. In one feature it is unusual, for he has attained wealth as 
well as distinction. 

Editors. 

189 



THE STUDY OF ENGINEERING. 
By 

Professor William H. Burr. 

It is frequently stated and often earnestly contended that engi- 
neering is the youngest of all the professions. In some respects this is 
true, although it is not true as a fundamental statement. The modern 
science of engineering is of comparatively recent date, for it is scarcely 
more than a century since the operations of the engineer began to be 
based upon sound philosophical principles and it is even less than that 
since the calling of the engineer assumed full-fledged standing among 
modern professions. As a matter of fact during the past eighty or 
ninety years the engineering profession has made such rapid advances 
and has extended so broadly, that the corresponding educational de- 
mands for those about to enter it have not, to this day, been fully met. 
The numerous and vigorous engineering schools which have sprung 
into existence within the past fifty years have done' and are doing excel- 
lent work. They have prepared thousands of young men for the credit- 
able performance of their duties as engineers, but in too many cases 
not satisfactorily as professional men. 

It is not intended by this observation to assume any position of 
superiority for those young engineers who have received a broad liberal 
education prior to entering the professional school, but simply to recog- 
nize the fact that there has often, in the past, been something materially 
wanting in the qualifications of engineers as a whole, resulting in the 
failure on the part of many in the community at least to recognize the 
full professional standing of the engineer. Fortunately this attitude 
of the public has largely disappeared, but it was only a few years ago 
when measures were discussed and proposed in the prominent engineer- 
ing organizations of this country to induce or compel, so far as may be, 
a more adequate recognition of the value of professional services of 
engineers on the part of the public than had been the case up to that 
time. Some medical and law schools already require a liberal, college 
course of study as a qualification for entrance. The question has al- 
ready arisen and is being seriously asked why those who are entering 
the engineering profession should not be required to possess at least 
as excellent educational qualifications as those who enter the profes- 
sions of law and medicine. 

191 



192 STUDY OF ENGINEERING. 

The agitation of this question of engineering education has stimu- 
lated material advances in the educational preparation of young engi- 
neers for their life calling. A number of engineering schools already 
encourage the acquisition of a liberal education before beginning a 
course of study in engineering. Columbia University took this im- 
portant step nearly fifteen years ago by prescribing probably the earliest 
six years' course of engineering study, the first three of which consist 
of work done in the college leading to the bachelor's degree and a 
subsequent three years in the engineering school leading to the engi- 
neering degree. This course of study is judiciously balanced so as to 
include all work given in the most advanced courses of engineering 
study in this country, the more elementary subjects of which are taken 
in the third year of college work and form part of the requirements 
for the bachelor's degree. 

Such a course of educational training is of the highest value not 
only to those young men who contemplate following engineering as a 
profession, but for a far larger class who intend to pursue callings not 
wholly of an engineering character, although more or less affiliated 
with some lines of engineering work. This group of liberally educated 
technical men are fitted to find their occupations in many fields of manu- 
facturing work, including such great industries as the steel and iron 
business, paper manufacturing in all its branches, the manufacturing 
of textile fabrics, manufacturing industries connected with the produc- 
tion of agricultural machinery and other commodities consumed in large 
quantities in agricultural pursuits, and other similar industries involving 
the manufacture and application of power, besides the broad field of 
contracting in its numberless ramifications in public works and corporate 
enterprises. Although the value of engineering study as a preliminary 
to these fields of industrial activity has occasionally been mentioned 
or even fully stated in some instances, its significance has not been 
appreciated to any sensible extent by the community as a whole. There 
is probably no direction in which engineering education can be made 
so widely useful to the modern community as in preparing its young 
men for this great diversity of useful callings. 

It is obviously no error to consider that the main function of an 
engineering school is to educate engineers, and yet that part of its 
functions may in the future affect the minority of its graduates. Com- 
paratively few engineers are required in the community as compared 
with physicians and lawyers. No member of any modern community 
can pass any great portion of his life, if that life is in any sense an 
active one, without requiring a number of times, and usually many 
times, the services of the members of those professions, but that part 



BURR. 193 

of the public who require the services of an engineer at any time in 
their lives is comparatively small. It is a calling fundamental to the 
welfare and development of the community and one in which the re- 
wards of earnest and well-directed effort are abundant, but the number 
of those who devote their lives to engineering specialties or to the 
practice of engineering in purely professional fields can never be rela- 
tively large. In one sense, obviously, this is advantageous, because it 
reduces the competition of the ablest and best qualified engineers to a 
simple matter compared with what it would be if the members of the 
profession were much more numerous. On the other hand, the num- 
ber of young men throughout the country who are to follow callings 
in the great industrial and other corporate fields where the work to be 
done is, to a greater or less extent, of an engineering nature must al- 
ways be great. They probably already constitute a majority of the 
executive and other officers of such industrial corporations, and it is 
a majority which will ever be increasing. 

In fact, in any business, where there are questions of structure 
or machinery or applications of power, or of the development of power- 
producing installations, or of the creation of conditions designed to in- 
crease agricultural productiveness, or to manufacture raw materials 
from any of the great natural resources of the country into available 
products for consumption, it is imperative that those who conduct or in 
any way take substantial part in such lines of work in the most effective, 
economic and productive manner should possess those qualifications 
which come chiefly, if not only, through the study of engineering. 

This general observation has already been more than justified in 
railroad corporations. In the near past the services of the engineer 
were required only in the construction of the road and the maintenance 
of the roadbed and motive power. All duties outside those of a struc- 
tural or mechanical character were performed by business men in their 
executive capacities who possessed no engineering qualifications of any 
kind whatever ; but that situation soon changed. It was found, and 
logically found, that the best executive or administrative officers of a 
great railroad corporation were, in the main, those who by education 
and experience had been engineers and consequently who, and who 
only, understood fully and thoroughly the character of the things which 
the railroad executive had to deal with. The broad questions of ad- 
ministration coming before every administrative railroad man and 
involving constantly, and many times in a thoroughly technical way, 
matters of an engineering character, can be satisfactorily settled so as 
to give to the corpo-ration the highest efficiency by those only who 
are competent to pass judgment upon such questions. The functions 



194 STUDY OF ENGINEERING. 

performed by every railroad corporation are largely of an engineering 
character and there is scarcely any question, even of a rate charge, 
which does not come back directly upon the engineering economics of 
construction and operation. In other words, the most thoroughly com-' 
mercial matters which must be administered by the officers of a rail- 
road corporation cannot be efficiently administered without an accurate 
knowledge of the engineering elements on which they are in the last 
instance based. 

Precisely the same observations can be made with equal force re- 
garding all branches of manufacturing, and they are of especial force 
in connection with the great industrial corporations of the country, all 
of which involve the administration of business interests depending for 
their . efficiency, economy, and success upon greatly varied applications 
of engineering. Those applications include the construction, operation, 
and maintenance of power plants, a great variety of structures, applica- 
tions of electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, chemical engi- 
neering, civil engineering, mining and metallurgy; and it is no longer 
possible to conserve such interests without technical knowledge and 
extended technical experience. While the actual doing of these things 
in every great corporate enterprise is intrusted to technical specialists, 
it is equally true that no administrative or executive officer of such a 
corporate organization can best conserve or administer the interests in- 
trusted to him by virtue of his position without possessing the educa- 
tional training and, frequently to a considerable extent, the experience 
acquired by engineers. While it is clearly beyond the capacity of any 
man to be personally familiar with all the technical details of any one 
of these various corporate industries, it is equally impossible, on the 
other hand, that he should be best qualified to discharge the duties of 
an executive position dealing with such technical interests without a 
fair knowledge of, and familiarity with, the fundamental principles 
which govern them, so as to know confidently what to require of the 
divisions or departments of the field of activity for which he is re- 
sponsible. Some of the most signal failures in these corporate opera- 
tions have resulted from the lack of essential knowledge on the part 
of administrative officers, just as the extended development and phe- 
nomenal growth of the most successful of them have been stimulated 
and directed by those who have had the requisite educational training 
and experience to direct and control intelligently and efifectively the 
resources available for their purposes. 

The study of engineering opens to those who pursue it the widest 
fields of industry and enterprise known to the modern world, and that 
study will never attain its full productiveness until' it is so put before 



BURR. 195 

the young men of the present time as to make clear the prominent fea- 
tures of its usefulness. It may. be thought that too much emphasis 
is laid upon this application of engineering study, but it is done only 
for the purpose of calling attention to one of the most important func- 
tions of engineering education, the value of which has not yet been 
realized . to any sensible extent even by those who are most active in 
promoting that field of educational work. 

The qualifications demanded of engineers in all the extended fields 
of engineering work are vastly more complicated than in the early days 
of those engineers who have not yet reached even middle life. It is 
no longer sufficient that a civil engineer, a mechanical engineer, an 
electrical engineer, or a mining engineer and a metallurgist should 
possess just that amount of technical knowledge which will enable him 
to discharge the duties of any position which he may hold, purely as 
an engineer. He has, or may become not only an expert technical man, 
but also the controlling personality in many wide fields of professional 
work in which it is not only his duty to direct purely professional opera- 
tions, but also to conserve varied interests depending upon those opera- 
tions in such a manner as to secure the efficiency and success of an or- 
ganization. In the discharge of these general or administrative duties, 
he loses in no sense his professional character, but he rather preserves 
it in a higher capacity and adds to it certain broad qualifications which 
can be best developed through his liberal education. It has become, 
therefore, almost or quite imperative that his educational training purely 
as an engineer should be preceded by the prior training of a college 
education. 

There is again another field of attractive activity which can best 
be entered through engineering study, and that is the wide field of 
municipal public works. This includes both the design and construction 
of all classes of public works, such as water works, bridges, roads and 
pavements, electric power development, electric lighting, harbors and 
docks, and other similar works, as well as the administration of those 
divisions or departments of municipal government whose jurisdictions 
include the various public works of large cities. There is no class of 
municipal officers who have given more satisfactory administration of 
these various public affairs than the commissions or commissioners who 
have been prepared for these public functions by engineering training 
and experience. The executive or administrative man is always sought 
whatever may be his calling.- His capacities make him a marked man 
and the engineering profession has a full share of such leaders. When- 
ever these men have been put at the head of public works, departments, 
or commissions, they have rarely failed to leave creditable records be- 



12. 



196 STUDY OF. ENGINEERING. 

hind them. To such an extent is this true that on one occasion the late 
Hon. Carl Schurz dwelt upon it with marked emphasis in an address 
which he made in Baltimore. The engineer is not by educational train- 
ing a politician; on the contrary, his whole habit of thought and work 
is to reach effective and honest results through which his purposes 
may be most efficiently accomplished, and that constitutes an excellent 
qualification for public service. 

These official services which gain their marked efficiency chiefly 
through the training acquired by engineering study have developed 
largely during the past decade. In fact, within the past two years 
engineers engaged in connection with municipal public works have 
been appointed to high administrative positions in such great centers 
of business and intelligence as Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Spring- 
field, Mass., and in a number of other large cities of the country. It 
is a field of honor and usefulness to which every engineer engaged in 
public works may properly aspire, and no candidate for such an ofiice 
can possess any more effective qualification than that which he derives 
from an engineering education. 

The influence of the study of engineering, therefore, is seen to 
reach far out in many directions which contribute to the welfare of 
the community, not only along purely technical lines, but also in a 
large number of great industrial fields and in the public service of the 
countrv. 



THE MAKING OF AN ENGINEER. 

By 

M. J. Riggs, C. E. 

Mr. Riggs is the Superintendent of the Toledo Branch of the 
American Bridge Company at Toledo, Ohio; and as such he has had a 
wide experience in dealing with young engineers. He is a graduate of 
the Iowa State College; and this address was delivered by him at his 
Alma Mater on the occasion of the dedication of its Engineering 
Hall in May, 1903. Portions only of the address are here produced — 
mainly those which deal with the necessity for absolute honesty in 
engineers of all kinds, ages, and conditions, from the embryo engineer 
just entering the freshman class of a technical school to the highest 
engineering authority in the land. 

As the reader will perceive, Mr. Riggs treats of other ethical sub- 
jects than honesty, and all that he says is expressed in such a forceful, 
vigorous style that it cannot fail to produce a deep impression upon 
anyone who reads it at all carefully. 

The Editors endorse heartily all that Mr. Riggs says; and they 
hope that his words of exhortation will long continue to aid in the 
betterment of the engineering profession by their influence upon its 
student members. 

Mr. Riggs was born in Iowa in 1862. After graduating from 
the Iowa State College in the Civil Engineering course in 1883, he began 
work as draftsman in the office of Mr. S. M. Hewett of Minneapolis, 
Minn., who was at that time the Northwestern Agent of the Smith Bridge 
Company, of Toledo, Ohio. In 1887 Mr. Riggs removed to the main 
office of the company and there gradually worked up to the position of 
Chief Engineer. When in 1901 the Smith Bridge Company was ab- 
sorbed by the American Bridge Company, he became manager of the 
Toledo plant, which position he still fills. 

Judging by the character of this paper, it is to be regretted that Mr. 
Riggs has not been able to spare more time from his important work to 
devote to engineering literature. 

Editors. 



197 



THE MAKING OF AN ENGINEER. 

By 

M. J. Riggs, C. E. 



This leads me to the ' statement of what I beHeve to be the highest 
purpose to which this fine building and equipment, together with the 
best efforts of all the professors in the engineering courses, should be 
dedicated, that is, briefly, to the building up of true men of strong 
character, breadth of view, and right purposes in life from the great 
abundance of raw material which lies scattered in your villages and on 
your farms all over this good state. When you graduate men of this 
stamp from your engineering courses you will have done your part to- 
ward making them first class engineers. 

When you look over the field and note what is being done and 
what is still to be done in the way of taking the forces and materials 
of nature and converting and using them to supply the world's needs, 
to build up society and to help along our best progress and development, 
you will find that there is plenty of work to be done, and that the en- 
gineer is the man who can and should lead and direct the doing of it, 
and let me say here that for the doing of this work the engineer receives 
ample reward. From the financial standpoint the efficient and capable 
engineer receives as much compensation, perhaps, as he would in any 
other profession or business. His best pay, however, comes from the 
work itself. There is a great satisfaction in doing things, and the 
successful accomplishment of any engineering work is a pleasure. 

In these days the engineer is the man who is turning the world 
upside down, and I know of nothing finer or more satisfactory than the 
building of a Brooklyn bridge, the building and equipment of the 
Northwestern railway, the development of Niagara waterpower, the re- 
claiming of one-half of one of our large western states through irriga- 
tion, the completion of a Chicago Drainage Canal, the building and 
equipment of a modern rapid transit railway system such as is now 
being done in New York City, or the putting into successful operation 
the large steel mills of the Carnegie Steel Co., at Homestead, Pa. 

If the engineer is to carry on successfully this great work he must 
be a first class man, he must be honest. He deals with forces and 

199 



200 THE MAKING OF AN ENGINEER. 

principles which are unvarying and which of themselves tend to make 
him honest. He must be honest to himself and to his work. Any viola- 
tion of these well known laws of nature will certainly make itself known 
and result in expense and disaster. He must be honest with his client 
or employer since he is put in trust of great interests both financial and 
material, and if he is to have the confidence of those for whom he 
works he can only have it by strict integrity and attention to business. 
There is probably no place in any profession or business for the 
dishonest man, but of all the professions of which I know, that of 
engineering has the least room for such men. On the whole, I believe 
engineers as a class are usually honorable. I have known a few of 
the opposite kind and have never known one to succeed and maintain 
any position whatever. 

The engineer must be energetic. His work is to get things done. 
He receives his pay and holds his position because men with means 
want to invest it with the idea of prompt returns. There certainly is 
no place in the engineering world for the lazy man. It is not how long 
will it take, but how quickly can it be done and how well, not how 
little can be accomplished today but how much, not half way service, 
but the very best that is in one. 

The engineer must be a man of broad view. He has large things 
to do in every part of his work, large undertakings to be carried out, 
large investments of capital to be properly expended; and no small man 
can do these large things well. For this reason I think his training at 
school should not be narrowed down to a specialty, but that he should 
have a broad culture, one that will tend to help him in these lines and 
to make him fit to do what he must do in life if he is to succeed. 

The engineer must keep up with the times, he should not be lazy 
mentally, he ought to keep fully posted as to what is being done in a 
general way along engineering lines, and he should have a much better 
and more intimate knowledge of his own particular line. This he can 
do by keeping his eyes open and always being quick and ready to adopt 
any methods which may be better than his own. He should take and 
read carefully three or four of the leading engineering papers which 
are published and which are doing an excellent work for the engineering 
profession. He should belong to the local and national societies of 
engineers in his line, and should keep in touch with brother engineers 
which his membership makes possible. 

Lastly, the engineer should be a good man. The qualities which 
I have outlined necessarily make him a man of power, of strength, and 
of influence, not only with the men with whom he works but also in 



RIGGS. 201 

the community in which he lives. These qualities cannot but make him 
a leader in social and public life. 

A man with all this inherent strength has no business to lessen it 
and curtail his usefulness and influence by not being a man of good 
morals, and by not using this strength to build up and help other men. 
There is no reason why the engineer should be blind on the moral side 
and every reason why he should be the opposite. I have little patience 
with the cob pipe, cigarette smoking, beer drinking engineer and I be- 
lieve no one else has, and I also believe that the brightest man cannot 
succeed in the engineering profession who is not also a good man and 
who is not letting his influence for right be felt by his associates, friends, 
and neighbors. 

I have carried for some years in my inside pocket some verses 
written by Maltie D. Babcock which I get out and read occasionally. 
The sentiment has helped me and I give the first verse to you now. 
"Be strong, we are not here to play, to dream, to drift. 
We have hard work to do and loads to lift. 

Shun not the struggle, face it. 
Tis God's gift." 



AMBITION. 

By 

Winder Elwell Goldsborough, M. E. 

The following extracts are taken from an interesting and spirited 
address made in 1906 by Mr. Goldsborough (then Vice President of the 
American Institute of Electrical Engineers) to the students of the Thom- 
as S. Clarkson Memorial School of Technology. 

Mr. Goldsborough's definition of work as being "something agree- 
able to do" is a good one and should be remembered and appreciated; 
and his approval of the "rolling stone" receives the unqualified endorse- 
ment of the Editors. 

Mr. Goldsborough was born in Baltimore, Md., October 10, 1871. 
He was educated at Wrights' University School, Baltimore, and Cornell 
University, graduating from the latter in 1892 with the degree of M. E. 

In 1892 and 1893 he was employed as electrical engineer by the 
Colliery Engineer Company, Scran ton, Pa. ; and in 1893 and 1894 he oc- 
cupied the chair of Electrical Engineering in the University of Arkansas ; 
afterwards he held the same position for eleven years at Purdue Uni- 
versity. Resigning from teaching in 1904, he became Business Mana- 
ger for J. G. White & Company of New York and London, holding the 
position for three years. Next he became Vice President and General 
Manager of the Denver Reservoir Irrigation Company for two years, 
then General Manager of the Laramie Water Company, and finally Pres- 
ident of the Goldsborough Company, civil, mechanical, electrical, mining, 
hydraulic, and irrigation engineers. 

He was Consulting Engineer to the Edison Electrical Illuminating 
Company, Baltimore, Md., in 1894 and 1895, and was Chief of the De- 
partment of Electricity at the St. Louis Exposition from 1902 to 1905. 

He has risen rapidly in his profession and has held many positions 
requiring the greatest executive ability and the exercise of thorough tech- 
nical training and knowledge. 

He has read papers before prominent scientific and engineering so- 
cieties, and has contributed articles to the leading scientific and engi- 
neering journals. He is an inventor with four U. S. patents to his 
credit; and his research investigations have included arc lamps, elec- 
trical machinery, and transformers. 

205 



204 AMBITION. 

He is a member of a number of the leading technical and scientific 
societies of America and England, and has been decorated with the Order 
of the Crown of Italy. He has traveled extensively, including a trip to. 
China. 

In respect to the address from which the following extracts were 
made, Mr. Goldsborough writes, 'It so happens that much of what is 
contained in my paper I have used as a subject of talks given to senior 
students during the spring of their last year in college. Upwards of five 
hundred young men have been talked to along these lines, and out of 
that number a considerable percentage have found the advice given them 
of sufficient value to tell me voluntarily on their return to college, after 
they had been out at work a few years, that they had found the said 
advice of great assistance to them and had put it in direct practice with 
much benefit in the work that they had had in hand." 

Such being the case, we hope that our readers will pay due attention 
to the counsel given in Mr. Goldsborough's paper. 

Editors. 



AMBITION. 

By 

Winder Elwell Goldsborough, M. E. 



We have a great misconception of what ''work" is. When I was 
a boy, work meant discomfiture to me. I always heard work or labor 
spoken of as something that no one wanted to do. 

Now, there are various definitions to be given to work, and the 
generally accepted definition of it is wrong. To my mind work is any 
agreeable and at the same time useful thing which a man has to do — 
the thing which he wants to do. It makes no difference what that thing 
is. If you are kept from "work" or tasks which you wish to perform 
by the obligation resting upon you to attend social functions, then these 
social functions become hard to endure. Many times a social func- 
tion is a real bore, and there is no pleasure in it. 

-^, But, are there many of us here who have not felt the thrill that 
comes with the perfection of some one thing in which we have our 
heart? What young engineer, after he has created through his plans, 
designs, and work, a large engineering plant, would be willing to be 
absent from the starting up of that plant for any social function or any 
pleasure of field or sport which you could offer him? It is the es- 
sence of his success. His life blood has gone into the plant. It is a 
creature of life and being to him. And he would not give up the 
pleasure of being there; of working all night; of experiencing any dis- 
comfort to make that plant a success, for anything else you could give 
to him. 

It is not the money, it is not the gain, which makes men in this 
country. America has been accused of being a country in which only 
gain is sought. That is not true. I have come in contact with too 
many of our men; I have seen too many of our boys; I have had them 
work too close to me ever for one moment to think that the dominant 
idea in the brains of our men and boys is money. 

There are many things which a young man has to learn if he would 
succeed; and all of us want to succeed. If we could only, when we 
start out, have the knowledge of the ways and methods of mankind that 
we acquire in later years, it would be very valuable to use. We can't 
learn those things by having them told to us, because they somehow 

205 



206 AMBITION. 

slip away. If you visit an engineering structure and study it, you can 
always carry it in mind and remember it and have it as a direct asset; 
but if you only learn of it by hearsay, you may or may not be able to 
retain a memory of it. And so it is with experience. We must learn 
it at first hand. We must acquire it for ourselves. Then why should 
any young man be willing, during two or three or four years of his life, 
to stay in one shop and learn but one thing, when there are so many 
things to learn? 

I once was conversing with Dr. Robt. H. Thurston. I had been out 
of college about three years, and in talking over the situation with him 
I apologized because the old saying "A rolling stone gathers no moss" 
did not seem to be exemplified in what I had been doing, as I had 
changed my position several times in the three years. He 'said "Don't 
worry about that. A rolling stone is the only one that gets polished." 
That set me to thinking. If the rolling stone gets polished — ^if you 
want a high polish, you have to roll a good deal. 

So the thing for a young man to do is to get out in life and to 
learn all he can in one position, and then, as soon as he has acquired 
the better part of the knowledge of one — he is young — he ought to 
break off, and get another place, even if he has to begin all over again. 
Because — think of the experience he is going to get in the new place, 
the new problems he is going to have to solve ; and he will be twice as 
good a man when he has acquired the new experience. 

Make trouble for yourselves, or at least what the world calls 
trouble; and with deliberate aforethought, if need be. Change condi- 
tions around. You have but so many years to live. And before you 
are thirty years old you must acquire a good deal of information about 
the ways in which business is, and can be, done. You note that a cer- 
tain man has consolidated a number of properties and thereby accumu- 
lated great wealth. How was that man able to do it? Once that man 
was in the same position you are. How did he find out how to con- 
solidate properties? By going and consolidating something. And he 
built and he built, and he consolidated bigger things, and by and by 
he became a multi-millionaire — and you wonder how it all happened. 
Simply because that man had the energy to go and find out the ways 
of doing these things and then to do them, and not necessarily, at all, 
because he had the means at hand with which to do them. No man who 
has attained to fame or to wealth by his own work, has attained to it 
except with much the same foundation and much the same opportunity 

that you have. 

********* 



THE TWENTIETH CENTURY ENGINEER. 
By 

Dr. Henry S. Carhart. 

This address was delivered by Dr. Carhart at the dedication of 
Pasadena Hall of the Throop Polytechnic Institute, Pasadena, California, 
in June, 1910; and it was published in the issue of Science of July 8th of 
the same year. 

Dr. Carhart in this paper gives much information of historical in- 
terest, treats of a number of ethical matters, and offers a great deal of 
valuable advice to engineering students; hence it is here reproduced in 
full in the hope that our readers will reap much benefit from its perusal. 

Dr. Carhart was born at Coeymans, N. Y., March 27, 1844. He 
studied at Wesleyan University, from which institution he received the 
degrees of A. B. in 1869, A. M. in 1873, and LL. D. in 1893. He studied 
also at Yale, Harvard, and Berlin. From 1872 to 1886 he was Professor 
of Physics at the Northwestern University, and from 1886 to 1909 he 
occupied the chair of Physics and Electrical Engineering at the Uni- 
versity of Michigan. Since 1909 he has been Professor Emeritus there. 

In addition to his professional work. Dr. Carhart has done con- 
siderable consulting engineering, mainly in the line of electricity. It was 
he who inaugurated and developed to its present state of high efficiency 
the electrical engineering course at the University of Michigan. He be- 
longs to a number of technical and scientific societies of the highest 
standing both at home and abroad, and has been President of the Ameri- 
can Electro-chemical Society. 

During his long career he has often been honored by being chosen 
as delegate to expositions and congresses in Europe and America. 

He is the author of numerous important technical and scientific 
papers in American and European Journals and of the following standard 
books: "Primary Batteries," "Elements of Physics," "University Phy- 
sics," "Electrical Measurements," "High School Physics," and "College 
Physics." 

Concerning the high character of Dr. Carhart's services at the Uni- 
versity of Michigan, we quote the following closing paragraphs from an 
address by Geo. W. Patterson, Ph. D., delivered upon the occasion of 
Dr. Carhart's retirement from active service there. 

207 



208 TWENTIETH CENTURY ENGINEER. 

"The debt of the. University to Dr. Carhart is perhaps equally 
founded on the executive ability shown in the development of his own 
and her daughter department (electrical engineering) and also his great 
success as a teacher of men. How seldom is it that we find a man a 
great teacher and at the same time a productive scTiolar of world wide 
fame ! His pupils will always remember his clearness as a lecturer and 
the uniform success of his experiments ; but more than this, they will 
always be conscious of the impress that as a man he made on them. 

"And then to us who have been fortunate in knowing him, there is 
the indescribable charm of good fellowship and personality which we shall 
not lose while^he is among us, though he has laid his University duties 
down. May he live long to enjoy his rest from University labors and to 
prosecute his researches in old but ever new fields." 

Editors. 



THE TWENTIETH CENTURY ENGINEER. 

By 

Dr. Henry S. Carhart. 

It is essential to develop industrialism, — to train men so that they 
shall be engineers, merchants — in short, men able to take the lead in all the var- 
ious functions indispensable in a great modern civilized state. 

Such was the recent utterance of a distinguished American trav- 
eler in an address at the ancient Moslem University on the banks of 
the Nile. It reflects the sentiment prevailing in America today. Mr. 
Roosevelt held up as it were a mirror to the Egyptians, that they 
might see in it the reflection of American conviction relative to edu- 
cation. The underlying thought is, as he expressed it, that 



There has always been too great a tendency in the higher schools of learning 
in the west (the Occident) to train rnen merely for literary, professional, and of- 
ficial positions ; altogether too great a tendency to act as if a literary education 
were the only real education. 

The foundation of healthy life in the state is necessarily composed 
of the men who do the actual productive work of the country. Among 
these producers the engineer is pre-eminent. Without him in the com- 
plex commercial life at the present, capital would lie idle, colossal manu- 
factures would shrink to individual industries, the development of re- 
sources would cease, the earth would no longer contribute as now to 
the wealth of nations, and society might eventually relapse into the rela- 
tion of the feudal baron and his retainers of the middle ages. 

The engineer is now more than ever before an essential factor in af- 
fairs. Engineering information and technical skill are in demand in 
many fields not heretofore requiring them. What manner of man is this 
present-day engineer, whose existence and work are so vital to the 
higher interests of society? What are the intellectual qualities that fit 
him for his high office, what the aptitudes that qualify him for leader- 
ship, what the supreme test of his fitness to bear on his shoulders some 
of the burdens of organized civil life and to lead the way toward still 
higher achievements? Finally, what style of intellectual training is best 
suited to fit him for the prodigious problems awaiting solution at his 
hands ? 

It is not necessary, even in this presence, to refrain from saying 
that the tvpe of man. whom we are about to survey in his highest 

209 



210 TWENTIETH CENTURY ENGINEER. 

ethical and intellectual character, is not an artisan, a motorman, nor 
even an engine-driver, as useful and honorable as these callings are. 
Nor is it manual training or manual dexterity or mechanical skill that 
constitutes his claim to recognition as an invaluable contributor to prog- 
ress in the twentieth century. He is rather the masterful man who 
unites oceans and revises the paths of commerce; who levels hills and 
removes mountains if they chance to be in his way; who changes 
the course of rivers or sends them through tunnels to generate electric 
light and^power and to convert deserts into fruitful fields. 

If modern industry demands combination and the massing of capi- 
tal, combination requires the services of large-minded engineers as 
managers. When Cecil Rhodes' appealed to the Rothschilds for capital 
to form the De Beers Diamond Mining Company for the purpose of 
uniting all the diverse and independent claims of the Kimberley dia- 
mond field, he was assured that money would be furnished on condi- 
tion that they be permitted to place in charge their mining engineer 
as manager — Mr. Gardner Williams, who hailed from the great state 
of the Golden Gate. Mr. Williams substituted for the open working 
of the diamond mines his method of mining by vertical shafts and 
horizontal tunnels into the core of the precious "blue-ground" filling 
the volcanic pipes, which have yielded uncut diamonds to the aggregate 
value of more than $500,000,000. 

When the great gold-bearing reef at Johannesburg, the richest 
gold mining district in the world, needed a controlling genius to direct 
the Kaffir mines, it was John Hays Hammond, another American mining 
engineer, who dictated the engineering and mining policies of the Wit- 
watersrand. Hammond adapted the method of mining the ore and 
winning the precious metal to the conditions existing in that great 
outcropping reef, forty miles in length, with the result that a low- 
grade conglomerate has yielded millions of gold with a fair profit to 
the shareholders. In large enterprises of this character success or 
failure turns on the trained intellect, the executive ability, and the 
comprehensive grasp of the controlling brain at the head. 

There is no rainfall in Egypt. The burning, wind-driven sands 
forever face a cloudless sky. On half the city of Cairo no green thing 
grows and flourishes. Mosques and the splendid tombs of the Mem- 
look sultans are surrounded by drifting sand. But for the yellow flood 
of Father Nile the whole of its fertile valley would be as parched as 
the sands about the great pyramids of El-Geezeh. I have seen the river 
in flood, when its turbid water stretched for miles beyond its banks 
to the rising ground at the feet of the Sphinx, enriching, irrigating, and 
insuring a bountiful harvest to the stolid hustendman, who still prac- 



C ARM ART. 211 

tices the methods consecrated by centuries of use. I^ature has done 
much for Egypt; engineering has done no less. The barrage at Cairo 
and the stupendous dam at Assuan conserve the rich tepid flood of the 
Nile and pour it in golden streams over a million acres of fertile sugar- 
cane and cotton land. Instead of a burning, barren waste, the land 
of the Pharaohs has become more than ever before in history a garden 
of the gods. Egypt may hate England, but to Sir Colin Scott-Mon- 
crieft*, an English engineer, who raised the barrage at Cairo and built 
the Assuan dam, she owes more than she ever did in ancient times to 
Ramesses II 

Across the Firth of Forth in Scotland stretches a massive iron 
bridge with two main cantilever spans, each longer than the famous 
Brooklyn bridge. They were pushed out horizontally from two canti- 
lever shore arms without scaffolding or false works, and with the 
roadbed soaring 300 feet above the water of the Firth. M. Eiffel de- 
clared that it was in comparison an easy task to build the Eiffel tower 
nearly 1,000 feet high, because it is vertical and stands on a firm base; 
but to push out such a tower horizontally 300 feet above an arm of the 
sea, and to balance it during construction on the top of a tall pier, was 
infinitely more difficult and hazardous. This hazardous feat the late 
Sir Benjamin Baker accomplished, and over his monumental bridge 
400 or 500 trains now pass daily. It was this same plain but resourceful 
engineer who designed the cylindrical ship that transported Cleopatra's 
needle from Alexandria to New York. 

These daring, resourceful, and intrepid engineers are examples of 
those who did their work for the most part in the last century. They 
are typical of a class who achieved fame and accomplished great things 
with but little help from the universities. They learned their lessons 
in the great school of experience, and arrived at success despite the 
lack of the early opportunities now open to the aspiring engineering 
student. They were not narrow specialists, but men with the broad 
intelligence to consider a new and difficult problem from all points of 
view, and to employ for its solution any method which their intellectual 
resources could command. They were not mere copyists, who read 
nothing beyond the headlines of their copy-books, nor yet mere imi- 
tators content to cull from the products of genius those that could be 
adapted to the problems in hand. They were rather the creators, whose 
edifices, built on the foundation stones hewn by others, have risen above 
the horizon for many lands. 

If we inquire somewhat more minutely into the qualities that 
make for leadership in engineering, we shall find that thoroughness, 
originality, and the habit of making all mental acquirements one's own 



13. 



212 TWENTIETH CENTURY ENGINEER. 

are essential. Originality is a gift, but it may be cultivated; the two 
other qualities are certainly within the reach of every young man with 
normal mental endowments. The habit of going to the bottom of every 
subject investigated instead of contentment with a superficial examina- 
tion is one to be assiduously cultivated. Each essay in concentrated 
effort makes mental fitness for still deeper levels of penetration. 

Thoroughness is associated with sincerity in the conduct of public 
works. The greater undertakings which an engineer is called on to 
design and execute are not the ephemeral structures, made of "staff" 
and designed to house an international exhibition ; they are for posterity 
as well as for his contemporaries. Noble examples of thorough and 
sincere work have come down to us from ancient times. One. allows 
the eye to follow with admiration the long lines of aqueduct stretch- 
ing across the Roman Campagna, in large part still standing, though 
gnawed for centuries by the tooth of tirne. In the Forum in Rome is 
an opening into which, one may descend to the uncovered Cloaca Max- 
ima, or great drain of the imperial city. It was built long before the 
Christian era and was old when Paul suffered imprisonment in Rome 
and execution outside the gates. Huge rectangular blocks of tufa lie 
in perfectly level courses without cement, and through this great drain 
today runs a stream, like a small river, on its way to the yellow Tiber. 
This was honest work and the twentieth century engineer might well 
imitate it. 

Then the proper assimilation of one's information is no less essen- 
tial than thoroughness. It is not uncommon to observe a sort of aloof- 
ness of a man's mental attainments with respect to his powers of prac- 
tical achievement. He appears to have put his acquisitions in a safety 
vault and lost the key. His intellectual equipment is ' for adornment 
and not for use. His collection resembles some collections of physical 
and engineering apparatus I have seen, well arranged from the point of 
view of a museum, but never used. A certain college janitor once 
complained in explanation of his ill health that his food didn't "suggest." 
This state of health is characteristic of the mental dyspepsic, who 
does not digest his intellectual pabulum, nor does it "suggest" any 
way in which it may be turned to good account. 

Another quality of the great engineer is daring. The mythical 
Darius Green had it, but his daring was not coupled with the pro- 
pelling power of an internal combustion engine; hence his story only 
adorns a rhythmic tale. His flying machine was not a forerunner of 
the aeroplane. Without this quality of daring developed to an aston- 
ishing degree the Wrights would not have amazed the world by their 
sustained flights, Bleriot would not have soared aloft across the Eng- 



CARHART. 213 

lish Channel, Paulhan would not have flitted from London to Man- 
chester, nor would Curtiss have followed the silver line of the noble 
Hudson from Albany to New York. These men are representative 
enthusiasts of the aeroplane, whose intrepidity has made possible the 
navigation of the air. 

The history of the first Hudson River tunnel at New York is one 
of repeated accidents, of many failures, and of final success. During 
one of the periods of inactivity and when the enterprise halted near 
complete failure, Sir Benjamin Baker was brought over from England 
as a consulting engineer to give advice to the company. The air 
caissons were in a dangerous leaky condition, but Sir Benjamin must 
himself go down to make ,an examination. So he called for a volunteer 
to accompany him. An Irish laborer stepped forward and indicated his 
willingness to go. Together the two descended into the pneumatic 
caisson. The inspection completed, imagine their dilemma when Sir 
Benjamin discovered that their return was. cut off by the leaky con- 
dition of the air locks. The eminent engineer said to his Irish com- 
panion that there was only one thing to do; they must bring mud in 
their caps, plaster over the cracks, and stop the leaks. The expedient 
was happily successful and the two escaped into the upper air. I heard 
Sir Benjamin tell the story to illustrate the devotion of the Irish laborer. 
After they were safely out Sir Benjamin said to his companion in 
danger, "Pat, why did you risk your life to go down into the caisson 
with me?" Pat replied, "I'll tell you sir. Do you remember when 
you were building the Forth bridge and the foundation of one of the 
piers was going in, and you were in the pit inspecting the work, that 
Mike McGinnis, Dan O'Leary, and myself were dumping stone into 
that same pit, and dumped a load without seeing that you were below? 
But as good luck would have it, sir, you were not hit. And what did 
you do sir? You just turned an eye up to see who had dumped the 
stone, but you said nothing, sir, and we were not told to go to the 
office for our time. And now here I am, sir; I endangered your life 
once, and it was only fair for me to take a risk for you when you 
needed it." Ah ! how many unrecorded deeds of devotion stand to the 
credit of the common laborers, who have risked their lives, and, alas, 
too often lost them, in carrying out some great enterprise for the public. 
The engineer at the head must be the intrepid leader of intrepid men. 

The engineer who devises and executes public undertakings of 
magnitude must always be prepared for the unexpected and therefore 
must be resourceful. It is not unusual to encounter difficulties not 
anticipated. These must be surmounted or failure is inevitable. A 
solution must be found without delay or great interests are imperiled. 



214 TWENTIETH CENTURY ENGINEER. 

Swiss engineers are at present constructing a short-cut railway line 
between Lake Thun and the mouth of the Simplon tunnel. It includes 
a long tunnel through a mountain range. Two years ago, after this had 
been driven forward about a third of the whole length from either end, 
the cut from the south side was unexpectedly and suddenly driven into 
a deep cleft or fault filled with soft mud and ooze and forming the 
underlying filled bed of a mountain stream. Twenty-five men were 
overwhelmed and lost their lives. Now a tunnel could doubtless be 
pushed through soft material of this nature, but there was no foundation 
on which it might rest. Was the enterprise therefore abandoned? 
By no means. Starting back a short distance from the uncovered fault, 
the engineers ran a curve into the heart of the mountain behind the 
obstruction; this, will join the two straight portions already completed. 

A similar fault 900 feet deep and filled with sediment has been 
found under the bed of the Hudson at the Highlands where the new 
aqueduct crosses the river. Since this is an aqueduct and not a viaduct, 
a different solution is possible. The tunnel is to be carried under the 
river as an inverted siphon with the vertical legs nearly 1,000 feet 
deep. If one can not remove or overcome an obstacle, one may at least 
go around or under it. 

These enumerated qualities which make an engineer fit are intellec- 
tual. There is still another which is a supreme test of fitness for public 
service. It is the moral quality of honesty. Failing in this, there is no 
compensation. Intellectual honesty includes the characteristic of sin- 
cerity, to which allusion has already been made. Moral honesty is no 
less essential in any age, but especially so in these days of uncovered 
bribery and graft. The honest engineer's opinions are not for sale to 
the highest bidder. He is entitled to compensation for his judgment 
and his decisions, but they can not be purchased, a distinction with a 
marked difference. 

There has never been an age when capable and honest engineer- 
ing talent was more in demand than in this new century. The present- 
day problems in great cities, incident to the rapid introduction of new 
methods of transportation, of lighting and power, and of communica- 
tion, are insistent for solution. They are almost hopelessly entangled 
with vested rights, and with class privileges, which have been recklessly 
given away in the past, or handed over for a secret and vicious consid- 
eration on the part of those incidentally in power. Civic bodies and 
public-service commissions, thanks to such heroic leaders as Governor 
Hughes, are now giving expert attention to the solution of these eco- 
nomic problems in cities, aided by the highest engineering talent that 
good compensation can command. New York, Chicago, and now Pitts- 



CARHART. 215 

burg are the subjects of study by such commissions, constituted either 
by private appointment or by legislative enactment. The engineers 
studying these problems must be clean-handed and honest to the core. 
This kind of public service is in its infancy, and the future is certain to 
furnish more of it for competent and clean engineers. 

I have sketched rapidly the salient characteristics of the modern 
engineer required for the larger problems of an age in which indus- 
trial develophient proceeds with astounding rapidity. It is too much to 
expect these qualities to be displayed in a marked degree by young 
men just entering upon a course of study leading to a degree in engi- 
neering. It is not mere possession of such qualities that ensures success, 
but the marked development of them. There are boys enough of sterling 
character, with originality, thoroughness, nerve, and resourcefulness 
in the directions in which the interests of youth lie. It is the office of 
the enthusiastic teacher to develop the possibilities of a promising boy, 
to stimulate the growth of those traits that especially need nurture, and 
to encourage the power of initiative and self-reliance. And he shall have 
his reward. It comes not in the way of pecuniary compensation, but 
in that sweeter award of appreciation and gratitude on the part of those 
whose regard in after years counts for more than mere passing popu- 
larity. No greater delight comes to the worthy teacher of large ex- 
perience than the success of those in whom he has taken a personal in- 
terest, and for whom he has been able to open the door of opportunity. 

It is pertinent now to touch on the style of training best adapted 
to develop the qualities that distinguish the eminent engineer from 
his less fortunate fellows. What shall be the philosophy of his treat- 
ment educationally for the conservation of his undeveloped resources 
and the reclamation of his arid areas? These are serious issues for 
thousands of ambitious students who stand on the threshold of their 
young manhood. 

The recent trend of affairs has shown too pronounced a tendency 
toward undue specialization in engineering practice. It is not enough 
that instead of the two traditional divisions of engineers in olden times, 
the civil and the military, there are now in practice civil, mechanical, 
mining, hydraulic, electrical, telegraph, telephone, sanitary, chemical, 
electro-chemical, and illuminating engineers, but the enthusiasts in these 
several lines are insisting that their specialties be assigned a seat in the 
circle of the engineering curriculum. This granted, the young collegian 
has either a narrow training that reduces him to the grade of an artisan, 
or the instruction given him is so superficial that it never strikes root 
and never reaches down to stir his subconscious powers. It may be suf- 
ficient for the practiced eye of a Paulhan to get a vivid impression of 



216 TWENTIETH CENTURY ENGINEER. 

the salient features of a landscape from the window of a railway carriage 
to serve as a guide in an aerial flight over the same region; but the 
young engineer, who gets a flitting view of the whole field of current 
engineering practice, from the moving-picture show of a lecture-room 
lantern screen will have only a sorry preparation for sustained flight 
when he attempts to rise by the power of his own enginery. 

Instead of a panoramic view of engineering practice, an interested 
public has a right to demand training in fundamentals and the elimina- 
tion of ephemeral details that constitute a current art and not a body 
of permanent principles. The older culture course has its humanistic 
studies, consecrated by centuries of use, and a body of trained experts 
as teachers, who are not often drafted from institutions of learning by 
the superior rewards of professional life. Pure science also has its 
settled subjects of study — its languages, its higher mathematics, and its 
circle of related sciences. Then too the scientific worker who has 
insight and becomes a discoverer enjoys a superlative satisfaction de- 
nied to men who never add to the sum of human knowledge as the re- 
sults of research. 

In contrast with these old-established courses, those in engineering 
are still indeterminate and lack, a certain coherence which is the product 
of age. Shop work has too often been exalted above language, and 
laboratories have been established in imitation. of a factory or a central 
power station. The fundamentals for general culture have been pushed 
aside by the onrush of machinery, and a young graduate must be able 
to run a steam engine and take an indicator card, even though he can not 
write a straight English sentence or dictate a business letter worthy to 
go on a post card. 

Too much stress can hardly be placed on the necessity of thorough 
instruction in English. It is a common impression among the young 
that the study of one's mother tongue is a waste of time. There never 
was a greater fallacy. Psychologists tell us that a speech center has to 
be formed and developed in the brain. So far is human speech from 
being intuitive and automatic that we acquire it only by continuous and 
incessant effort. There is no tool used by the human mind requiring 
more polishing and taking a finer finish. Language is not an inheri- 
tance, but an acquisition. It may resemble on the one hand the crude 
spears or assegai of the South African Kaflirs, or on the other the flex- 
ible incisiveness of a polished Damascus blade. American college stu- 
dents have less facility in the use of idiomatic English than have students 
of the same age in the English universities. When one listens to the 
limpid and expressive English of an Oxford senior, and notes his large 
vocabulary and his facile use of it, as compared with the senior in an 



CARHART. 217 

American college, one is prepared to admit the propriety of the distinc- 
tion often drawn on the continent between English and American. 

The engineering student should have sufficient acquaintance with 
the best masterpieces in English to give him a taste for the highest 
types of English prose, and enough practice in writing themes to secure 
for himself a clear and expressive style of composition. 

The opinion of eminent engineers on the pressing need of a better 
use of English on the part of members of their profession is the best 
evidence of the neglect of instruction in English in engineering courses 
in the past. The acquisition of a clear, terse style is urged by them 
on the ground that an important feature of the modern engineer's duties 
is to make reports on various phases of engineering undertakings. 
These reports are an index of the man, and if they are defective in form 
or finish, the natural conclusion is that he is also deficient as an engineer. 

It is scarcely necessary to insist on thorough courses in physics and 
mathematics as fundamental subjects for all engineers, though the former 
has often been pushed aside, with barely time enough for instruction in 
the merest elements of the subject, notwithstanding the fact that engi- 
neering is largely applied physics. A civil engineer at the head of that 
department in a large technical school recently admitted that engineer- 
ing students should take a course in light because of their use of opti- 
cal instruments in surveys and locations, but he expressed the opinion 
that they had no use for the study of sound. And yet the abatement 
of serious and unnecessary noises in large cities is already the avowed 
object of several voluntary organizations. Any observant traveler, who 
has occasion to patronize the New York subways, will readily admit that 
some attention to the avoidance of noise on the part of the civil engi- 
neers who designed the subways would have been of great benefit to the 
patrons of that wonderful artery of travel. When the London Central 
was first put in service seventy-five feet below the surface, complaints 
and suits at law were numerous on the ground of serious vibrations 
transmitted to buildings overhead. These vibrations have largely been 
eliminated by reconstructing the electric engines to prevent their pound- 
ing the rails. Such facts as these the modern engineer would do well 
to heed. 

An engineering course should include instruction in history and 
economics. The great civic and economic facts of the larger world 
should be a part of the engineer's outfit. His part in the world's work 
has close connection with those social and economic movements that 
are conditioned on future development; and the only guide we have for 
the future is the teaching of the past. 



218 TWENTIETH CENTURY ENGINEER. 

If present courses in engineering are to conform to these sugges- 
tions, some modifications in the purely technical subjects are requisite. 
Instruction in these may well be confined more closely to fundamental 
principles and to the enforcement of them by the concrete examples fur- 
nished by the exercises in the laboratory. A multitude of details do not 
belong in the instruction given to immature students, but to the actual 
work of the practicing engineer. If inquiry is made of the experienced 
engineer from whom he got the most help in his college course, he will 
not mention the teacher whose instruction consisted largely of a cate- 
gory of details of the engineering art, but rather the one who marshaled 
die leading facts of the subject under general principles, brought out 
clearly the correlation between them, and enforced them by the work 
of the laboratory, which had obvious and vital connection with the in- 
struction of the class-room. 

My friends, I have seen young men develop into engineers who are 
now engaged in leading work in the world. They are directing large 
operations in telephone companies, holding influential posts in electric 
light and power industries, directing new enterprises destined .to develop 
resources, superintending manufactures of large moment, and super- 
vising construction undertaken by the Reclamation Service of the federal, 
government. Such men as these give me great hope for the future of 
this institute planted in the most attractive spot in the empire of Cali- 
fornia south of the Tehachepi. This is a region abounding in undevelop- 
ed possibilities. Its water powers, its mines, its reservoirs of liquid 
fuel, its irrigation possibilities, coupled with a soil in which nature 
has been lavish in her gifts of productiveness, and its ocean shore in 
touch with the wealth of the orient, all combine to offer a field to the 
aspiring engineer unsurpassed in history and written all over with fetch- 
ing inducements to noblest effort. 

The young man who wishes to become a component part of this 
empire as an engineer will enter this institute and take a straight course, 
looking for no short cuts to a degree, expecting no magician to lift him 
over hard work, and later to put him down softly in easy engineering 
positions. To all such the Throop Polytechnic Institute says, "Come 
this way!" 



ENGINEERING AND LIFE. 

By 
Professor Frank H. Constant. 

Professor Constant, who is still a young man, occupies the chair of 
Structural Engineering in the University of Minnesota. This address 
was prepared by him for delivery to his students in 1907. His dis- 
course is sound, thoughtful, and scholarly; and no one who reads it 
can fail to receive much benefit from the author's lofty ideals. 

Professor Constant was born at Cincinnati, Ohio, July 25, 1869, and 
was graduated at the University of Cincinnati in 1891 with the degree of 
C. E. From 1891 to 1893 he was in the designing and estimating de- 
partments of the King Bridge Company at Cleveland, Ohio. From 1893 
to 1895 he was with the Osborn Engineering Company, of the same city, 
in charge of designing. In 1895 he took the position of Assistant Pro- 
fessor of Structural Engineering in the University of Minnesota, and in 
1897 he was made full professor in that department, which position he 
still holds. 

In addition to his teaching, he attends to considerable outside prac- 
tice; for in 1899 he was Resident Engineer to the Minneapolis and St. 
Louis Railway Company, and in 1900 he was in charge of the recon- 
struction of the Northern Pacific Railway Company's bridge over the 
Misfissippi River at Brainerd, Minnesota. From 1905 to 1907 he was 
Consulting Engineer to the Twin City Rapid Transit Company, in charge 
of the reinforcement of the Lake Street Bridge across the Mississippi 
River between Minneapolis and St. Paul, and of the designing of various 
bridges and viaducts and a tunnel. 

He spent his sabbatical year, 1910-1911, in Dresden and Munich. 

He is a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers and of 
the Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education. 

Editors. 



219 



ENGINEERING AND LIFE. 

By 
Professor Frank H. Constant. 

A man grows in proportion as he touches life, and no man needs 
this vitalizing touch more than the engineer. The world does not fully 
understand the engineer nor appreciate the true nobility of his work. 
It is inclined to regard him as uncompanionable, as unsympathetic with 
the higher things of life, as one with ideals which are mechanical and 
practical and therefore low. And, as on the one hand he has felt this 
lack of a humanizing bond between himself and his fellows in other 
walks of life, and on the other has tasted the real joy of his work and 
found there an absorbing interest, he has withdrawn more and more 
from life in its broad sense, becoming individualistic, unsocial, and out 
of sympathy with everything not distinctly engineering in its nature. 
I am speaking now of the general type. 

Negatively the engineer has been characterized as a man with the 
social instincts poorly developed, who is more at home in the field or 
office than in the drawing room, whose conversation runs to facts and 
figures rather than to general ideas and speculative truth, whose read- 
ing is confined to the almost unlimited field of technical literature with 
little or no browsing in the fields of letters, art, science, or general knowl- 
edge, whose mental processes are concrete and mathematical and bear 
upon the practical problems with his daily work, finding little time for 
the vast world of thought outside of his own calling. 'T would rather 
have one good engineering formula than all the logic ever written,^' 
was the rather crushing reply from an engineering classmate when the 
writer, with doubtless much show of egotism, was displaying his newly 
acquired knowledge of formal logic, in the old college days. The writer 
remembers the loud laughter which accompanied a bright young Sibley 
College graduate's description of an academic classmate who was fond of 
scouring the country waysides with a butterfly net. Is not a general lack 
of sympathy with branches of knowledge whose utilitarianism is not 
immediately apparent, a general characteristic of the engineer? With 
what impatience and lack of interest most engineering students pursue 
prescribed studies having no immediate bearing upon their technical 
work. Nay more, even in a strictly technical subject the instructor 
must emphasize the practical bearing of each part of his instruction. 
Let him, in his enthusiasm, momentarily wander oflf by the wayside with 

221 



222 . ENGINEERING AND LIFE. 

net in hand to catch the whole truth of his subject and he is summarily 
brought back to the wide and beaten path by the sudden falling off of 
the interests of his class. How to do things, not why they are so done 
is the question he must satisfy. 

Happily there is another, a positive side in the analysis of the engi- 
neer. Generally he is a man of sterling character, of rigid honesty in 
the midst of manifold temptations, devoted to his work which he finds 
absorbingly interesting, a hard and usually inadequately paid worker 
finding compensation in successful achievement, kind but firm to his 
subordinates, loyal to his superiors, jealous of his reputation, unosten- 
tatiously proud of his own and other engineers' achievements. Narrow, 
if you will, because he is little interested in letters and art, but finding 
his own chosen field broad enough to occupy all of his time and energy. 
No more narrow, therefore, than many another faithful worker who 
finds the business of life all absorbing. But not narrow in the sense 
that his intellectual development is dwarfed, for it may truthfully be 
said that the engineer who attains to modicum of success must pos- 
sess intellectual power and training at least equal to that required for 
a like degree of success in any other calling. In a word the engineer 
possesses character, intellectual power, and an intimate acquaintance with 
Nature's ways and laws. He needs but the humanizing touch with life 
to round out his character and immensely broaden his sphere of useful- 
ness. How may he more closely touch life and how will it affect his 
work and personality? 

The first care of a sturdy and virile man who wishes his presence 
in this world to add a little to the sum total of human progress, is for 
the partial success, at least, of his chosen life work. Now success in 
an engineering sense at the present day, is not simply graduation from 
college, a position in an office or field, and a permanent devotion to 
technical details which gradually narrow in scope as the advancing 
years bring greater and greater specialization. Such a man may rise 
to the head of an office, he may design important structures and justly 
be proud of his achievements, and yet ever wonder that his compensa- 
tion is no greater. Such is the type of the older generation. The office 
man was out of place in the field; and both office and field men were 
accounted impractical in the management of executive affairs. He was 
not supposed to have broad ideas upon economic policies nor to present 
what views he did have forcibly and effectively. He was selected not 
for executive positions but to work up the details of projects which 
others planned and benefited from. He was regarded as an expert 
technician, and his success was measured by the skill he possessed in 
grasping technical details and by his creative power in solving new and 



CONSTANT. 223 

complex engineering problems. That he has risen magnificently to this 
height, there is no shadow of doubt. That he must be an expert techni- 
cian before he can go farther is likewise true. But, in addition to this, 
his life and training should especially fit him to direct large business 
interests involving details where engineering judgment in a broad sense 
is the desideratum of success. His special fitness in this regard is 
beginning to be recognized in very recent years by the business world. 
Just as fast as engineers have shown executive capacity they have been 
advanced to such positions, and generally, whenever they have taken 
hold, the increased efficiency of the management has been marked. 

These men have developed the capacity to direct large affairs only 
as they have learned to understand their fellow men. Like Antaeus 
whose strength was renewed each time he touched mother earth, the 
engineer grows by contact with life which is Nature in her highest and 
most interesting aspect. As these words are addressed mainly to young 
men about to enter the profession of engineering, whose ideals for 
future professional success are, or should be very high, a few words 
of advice may not be out of place. Every piece of engineering work is 
ultimately performed by men, skilled or unskilled. The young engineer 
should endeavor from the start to learn as much as possible about these 
men who actually do the work. It is not enough simply to supervise 
their work. You cannot find the real man in such superficial contact. 
The important thing is to learn the workingman's point of view, how 
he looks at things, his strong points, his frailties, his real capacity, his 
sympathies and prejudices. Such a knowledge can come only by work- 
ing side by side with men, rubbing shoulder to shoulder, by being one 
of them. Instead of seeking a pleasant position upon an engineering 
stafif, the student should spend his vacation in the shop or on the track 
or in a constructor's crew. He will learn many small details in prac- 
tical construction which he can get in no other way, he will get the 
strong body and physical vigor which are so necessary a foundation for 
the continuous mental strain of after years, but above all he will acquire 
a real knowledge of the men whom later on he must direct, organize, 
and use efficiently. Likewise, young graduates should seek the shops 
and field crews for their early experience. The chief engineer of a 
large railway system when he graduated from college, accepted an 
engineering position where he had to pass upon the work done by con- 
struction crews. After several years he realized that he did not really 
understand the work nor the men whom he had to direct. He went 
to a place where he was unknown and joined a railway carpentry crew ; 
later went into a blacksmith shop ; then into a foundry ; finally into the 
mines ; always starting as a novice and remaining long enough to be- 



224 ENGINEERING AND LIFE. 

come a master workman, foreman, or superintendent. After four years 
of this kind of life he went back to his engineering work and advanced 
almost immediately into a high executive position ; and the knowledge of 
men which he gained by this experience makes him one of the leading 
engineers in the country. Perhaps all men will not respond equally 
well to this kind of experience. Many will lose sight of the end in the 
humble routine of elemental life, and tiring of the drudgery turn to 
something easier and pleasanter. Some may be harmed by the rough 
life. But it may be asserted that in neither case do these men have the 
strength of character necessary for success in the highest sense. They 
would have fallen by the wayside in any event. I am speaking for the 
men who can really succeed in engineering, who have the ambition, the 
character, the industry, the staying powers, the mental force. These 
men cannot but be helped by beginning at the bottom. 

Salary and even comfort should be no consideration during the 
first two or three years. Call it a post graduate course if you will : 
what one is after is contact with men and life, full, abundant, complete. 
Will his ultimate advancement be delayed thereby? Probably not. In 
some cases it may even be hastened. Will he have forgotten much that 
he learned in college? Possibly. He went to college for the mental 
training and that still abides with him. But he has gained a new and 
more vital knowledge — that of life itself — which cannot be acquired 
from books nor in the classroom. Moreover, if he is the right kind of 
a man, he will not be scholastically idle during these elemental years. 
He will seek relief from the rough toil of the day in his books and 
studies. He will not be stagnating mentally, but will be growing at the 
roots with amazing rapidity and virility. During this period, while he 
has been studying the real self of the men who work, he will also learn 
much about the men who command. As he quickly climbs from the low- 
est round of the ladder into higher and higher positions, his interest in 
men will broaden and become universal. Such a man, if placed in high 
executive positions, will know how to meet and to move men and will 
understand the capacities of the men under him. Thus a constant and 
close touch with life is essential for his highest professional good. 

Thus far we have considered success from the standpoint of pro- 
fessional advancement. But as man is more than vocation, so his real 
success in life is not to be measured wholly in terms of vocational 
achievement. It is in this lack of a broad appreciation of the real mean- 
ing of success that the engineer makes his greatest mistake, leading, as 
we have seen, to the narrow type of our early characterization. What- 
ever broadens the whole man must necessarily better fit him for his 
special work. The engineer, wrapped in his individualism, imagines 



CONSTANT. 225 

himself different from other men and therefore freed from their com- 
mon obligations. This point of view is fallacious. Many a good phy- 
sician or lawyer or minister might have become a good engineer if he 
had started that way, and vice versa. Doubtless the average engineer 
has a natural mechanical bent drawing him to mathematical and mechan- 
ical problems ; and in some few men this bent is so strong that they 
may be unsuccessful in any other calling. But few men are so decidedly 
called to a particular work, and in most cases the final choice is a matter 
of great conflict of mind. Success in engineering, as in any calling, 
depends upon hard application and experience. The instinct to con- 
struct is native-born in most men, clearly manifested in early child- 
hood. It is certain that the engineer is made from quite universal stuff, 
his growth depending upon such common elements as intellect, mental 
training, industry, perseverance, experience. He is above all a man, 
and our final perspective must consider him from this view point, in 
which his work as an engineer must take its relative place with all the 
other activities of his life. It is but a part of the whole, in which all 
the parts are sympathetically related and all working together for the 
common end — the full development of the man. We cannot therefore 
get this largest and truest perspective of the engineer unless we also 
consider him from the standpoint of his common manhood and its rela- 
tion to other activities of life. He cannot develop in the highest sense 
as an engineer unless he likewise grows as a man. 

Men are broadly classified in the two-fold way as political and 
social units. As a political unit the American engineer finds himself 
a member of a democracy. But democracy means that a grave respon- 
sibility rests upon each individual, in proportion to his capacity, to take 
a real part in the government of his country. President Roosevelt said 
in a recent address at Harvard: 'T want you to feel that it is not 
merely your right to take part in politics, not merely your duty to the 
state, but that it is demanded by your own self-respect, unless you are 
content to acknowledge that you are unfit to govern yourself and have 
to submit to the rule of somebody else as master — and this is what it 
means if you do not do your own part in government." 

The many grave problems confronting the republic will be wisely 
solved only when every citizen considers himself personally respon- 
sible for them and applies as much thought to their solution as he does 
to his private business. The responsibility of citizenship falls heavily 
upon the engineer, for not only is he especially fitted by his training 
to handle large problems, but many of the public questions involve broad 
engineering principles, and too often he is the most listless of citizens. 



226 ENGINEERING AND LIFE. 

If the engineer will not interest himself in these problems, can he expect 
others to be more faithful or to find better solutions? 

As a nation we are notoriously selfish in the pursuit of our own 
private ends, indifferent to its best welfare except when our own in- 
terests are threatened, thankful if the ship of state will but keep off 
of the rocks. As a democracy we have fallen far short of the ideal 
simply because the educated and broad sighted men of the country have 
not given their efforts in its behalf. The building of a bridge or rail- 
road is undoubtedly for the public weal. But more important still is 
the building of the ideal democracy in which all men will truly share in 
its government and all problems will be solved in the spirit of unselfish- 
ness and with wisdom. Here is to be found the meaning of true patriot- 
ism — a patriotism which, day by day, in the midst of more selfish in- 
terests finds the time to work for the country's best welfare. 

The engineer is likewise a member of society, from which he gets 
much and to which he owes much. Society is the relation of man to 
man. He gets from it not only the knowledge of life as it exists at 
present, but the history of its past development as it has left its impress 
in art, Jiterature, science, and human experience. It alone has made 
possible the evolution of man from a lower to a higher state. In its rich 
soil alone the individual soul may germinate and expand into something 
larger and nobler. ]\Ian, and especially the engineer, cannot afford to 
withdraw from its stimulating influence. 

We have seen how breadth of view is essential to the highest suc- 
cess of the engineer. So also is a broad liberal culture necessary to the 
development of the whole man. Truth is not confined to any one branch 
of human knowledge. She is like the many colored woof of cloth trac- 
ing its way in and out over the whole field. He who would know her 
as she truly is must seek her in many habitations. No man can compass 
the whole of human knowledge, but he can keep himself atune with it, 
ready to vibrate on all sides. I would counsel the young engineer, fix- 
ing his ideal at nothing less than the fullest development of the whole 
man, to let a love for knowledge — for truth as seen from many sides — 
spring up and grow alongside of his enthusiasm for engineering. Es- 
pecially should he seek the so-called humanities, which teach of man's 
relation to man, for here he will find the mainspring of human action. 
Students of engineering should not avoid but welcome occasional sub- 
jects chosen from this group. I hope the day will come when our en- 
gineering colleges will require one or two years of academic training 
for entrance to the technical courses and that even these will be as broad 
as practicable. 



CONSTANT. 227 

A broad culture fits a man for any society. But if the end were 
simply selfish — his own increased enjoyment of life, or greater profes- 
sional advancement — it might not be worth the seeking. But each man 
should pay back to society something that he takes from it, and his 
present duty is clear. In spite of ever increasing wealth and prosperity, 
in spite of great achievements in science and particularly engineering 
science, bringing increased comfort or luxury to every man, the ideals of 
society as a whole are disappointingly low. Power and wealth are sought 
for their own sakes ; commercialism and rapid living rule the day. 
Nearly every one is caught in the tide and, in spite of better judgment, 
swept along with the current. It is the man of broad culture and high 
ideals who must lead the way to things better worth while, that the lives 
of the majority of men may not be wasted seeking baubles. Man may not 
live by bread alone. The engineer, especially, has been accused of ma- 
terialistic ideals, and as one whose life is spent in a mechanical atmos- 
phere and w^ho often controls the spending of large sums, he is prone to 
over-rate the real value of these things in life. He, too, needs the broad 
culture that leads to a sane perspective of life and its high ends. 

Our engineering colleges draw many recruits from humble homes 
in which the stern conditions of life have left no place for culture. To 
most of these young men the engineering college is the door to a posi- 
tion, work that is stimulating and interesting, a comfortable living. To 
many this preachment may seem too idealistic and therefore impracti- 
cable. They are thankful to get a good position and to enjoy an increas- 
ing salary. They become valuable to their employers, their living is 
assured, they are happy. Culture (they think) is not a concom- 
itant of engineering; and having started with little, why bother about 
it at all? The man of narrow view does not understand breadth of 
view ; the man in the valley has no conception of what the man on the 
hill top is seeing. It is the men at the top and not those at the bottom 
(however numerous), who stamp the true character of a calling. The 
uncultured engineer, finding himself in a numerous crowd, may think 
that his view includes the whole length and breadth of engineering, 
and that, like a fraternal order, having once been admitted to member- 
ship he has been initiated into all its secrets and henceforth may enjoy 
an equal fellowship. The outside world seeing the large membership 
of the uncultured imagines that this is the type that all engineers must 
conform to — that it is essentially a narrow and unidealistic calling. 

Of course this opinion is incorrect. Engineering is not a fraternal 
order, but a progressive vocation with a definite bottom and offering 
unlimited opportunities for expansion upwards. Matiy have reached 
high eminences and have enjoyed the society and friendship of the 



14. 



228 ENGINEERING AND LIFE. 

greatest men of their time. The names of great engineers have come 
down to us from all ages along with those of statesmen and generals. 
In Westminster Abbey there is a memorial tablet to Robert Stephen- 
son, the great English bridge engineer, whilst in the crypt of the cathe- 
dral of Glasgow a similar memorial to the same man is the shrine visited 
by thousands. England honors many of its great engineers with knight- 
hood. In Europe the engineering profession is regarded with honor 
and of equal rank with the other learned professions, but in these coun- 
tries entrance into this, as into any of the professions, requires long years 
of very rigorous training superimposed upon a broad foundation of gen- 
eral culture. 

But it is not necessary to turn to Europe to find the true place of 
engineers in the society of men. This country has a long roll of honor 
which contains names that any profession or any country might well 
be proud of ; men who are not only great engineers, but gentlemen of the 
highest and broadest culture. The young engineer should turn his 
eyes upward to see what engineering truly is, and from the illustrious 
men at the top catch the inspiration and ideal for his professional life. 
He will find these men truly broad both as engineers and as men, and 
he will find further that it is because of their breadth that they are 
great engineers. 

Engineering is a noble calling and the men who follow it need 
not necessarily, if they so mind, be swallowed up in a sea of material- 
ism. Matter is universal and clothes the seat of thought and spirit. 
In molding matter to the uses of man the engineer but adapts him- 
self to the conditions of a material world. The real engineer is the 
intellectual force and spirit back of matter. So far from being de- 
based, he is to be congratulated that his mind may work in such close 
harmony with nature. His mental processes are sane and true^ and 
drawing their inspiration from nature they find there an unlimited 
source. He need not be ashamed of his calling; let him see to it that 
he is worthy of it and that he use the rich opportunity to grow into 
the full measure of manhood. 



LIMITATIONS OF EFFICIENCY IN ENGINEERING 

EDUCATION. 

By 

Dr. George Fillmore Swain. 

Although this address was not prepared directly for the benefit 
of engineering students, but more especially for their instructors, it 
contains, nevertheless, many matters of interest and value to under- 
graduates, which alone would be sufficient reason for its reproduction 
here, even if it were not the sole specimen given of Dr. Swain's writ- 
ing. Without an example of his diction, the book would be incom- 
plete; because he is one of the most noted engineering instructors of 
America. For many years he taught civil engineering at the Mas- 
sachusetts Institute of Technology, at the same time attending to a 
large private practice, including membership on important engineer- 
ing commissions of his State; but lately he has been called to Harvard 
University to take charge of its post-graduate course in engineering. 

No comment is necessary concerning Dr. Swain's lecture, the high 
character of his ideas and the forcefulness of his expression being 
evident to the most casual reader. 

Dr. Swain's professional record is as follows : 

Graduated in Civil Engineering in 1877 at Massachusetts Institute 
of Technology with the degree of S. B. 

Studied from 1877 to 1880 in the Polytechnic School at Berlin under 
Professors Winkler, Hogen, and Goering. 

From 1880 till 1883, Expert on water power for the U. S. Govern- 
ment, spending the summers in the offices of Locks and Canals at Lowell 
and with the Essex Company in Lawrence. 

In 1881, Instructor in Civil Engineering at the Massachusetts In- 
stitute of Technolog>s and in 1883 Assistant Professor in Civil Engineer- 
ing there. From 1887 till 1909 he was Professor of Civil Engineer- 
ing in charge of the Department at the same institution. 

In 1906 he received the honorary degree of LL. D. from New York 
University. 

From 1909 to date, Cordon McKay Professor of Civil Engineering 
in the Graduate School of Applied Science at Harvard University. 

From 1887 to date Consulting Engineer to the Massachusetts Rail- 



229 



230 ENGINEERING EDUCATION. 

way Commissioners, particularly with reference to railway and highway 
bridges. 

From 1894 to date, Mfember of the Boston Transit Commission, 
which has expended up to the present time nearly twenty millions of 
dollars. 

Since 1910, Expert for the Commission on the Validation of the 
Assets and Liabilities of the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Rail- 
road Company. 

In addition to the preceding, Dr. Swain has done a great deal of 
other important work as consulting engineer, including valuations of many 
railroad properties ; and he has served on several commissions in various 
states of the Union. 

He is a member of the leading technical societies of America, Eng- 
land, and Germany; and has been President of the Boston Society of 
Civil Engineers and of the Society for the Prom_otion of Engineering 
Education — also Vice President of the American Society of Civil Engi- 
neers. 

Editors. 



LIMITATIONS OF EFFICIENCY IN ENGINEERING 
EDUCATION. 

By , 

Dr. George Fillmore Swain. 

Our colleges, universities, and technical schools are at the pres- 
ent time the subject of serious criticism at the hands of many writers, 
some of them in high authority in educational matters, some of them 
outsiders with no teaching experience, who judge of the work of the 
schools by the men that are turned out. Even the presidents of some 
of our educational institutions, if they have been correctly reported, 
admit that much of the development of the last few decades has been, 
if not in the wrong direction, at least incomplete or unsymmetrical, 
and that important modifications need to be made in regard to methods 
of instruction and administration, as well as in matters of general 
educational policy. Critics outside the teaching profession, joining in 
the complaint, have pointed out what they consider serious faults, and 
have indicated how, in their opinion, our colleges should be reorganized. 

While most of this criticism has been directed against the colleges, 
the engineering schools have come in for their share. Engineers of 
eminence, like Mr. F. W. Taylor, and employers of engineers, like 
Mr. Crane, have told us that the engineering graduate, when he leaves 
the technical school or the university, is of little or no use to his em- 
ployers — at least until he has been seasoned by several years of ex- 
perience in contact with the hard world — with the solid facts of life. 

Let me invite your attention for a few moments to a consideration 
of the questions what the engineering graduate might be and ought 
to be when he leaves the school, what he too often is, and what some 
of the difficulties are which prevent the attainment of the ideal ; in 
other words, let us consider some of the limitations of efficiency in 
engineering education. 

Let me first admit that a long experience in teaching has con- 
vinced me that there is much truth in the criticisms which have been 
made. I fully believe, however, that they have been often exaggerated, 
and, moreover, that many of the defects that have been pointed out 
are capable of remedy. 

When our technical schools were new, say forty or fifty years ago, 
the value of a scientific training was not appreciated by manufacturers, 

231 



232 ENGINEERING EDUCATION. 

or even by members of the engineering profession itself. The " ma- 
jority of engineers had not had the advantages of a thorough educa- 
tion, and indeed, it had not been fully realized that engineering was 
a science. It was considered a branch of the building art, and its 
practice was largely empirical. Consequently, engineering graduates 
often had difficulty in obtaining positions, and their, scientific acquire- 
ments were considered to be of little use; the young graduates were 
looked upon as theorists, and as inferior to the practical men who had 
gained their knowledge by experience. A sharp contrast was drawn 
between theory and practice, as though the two were incompatible; 
and the practical man, whether engineer or employer, scoffed at the 
theorist, often only too justly. 

All this, however, rapidly changed; the schools soon realized the 
fact that they could not make a man an engineer, and that they should 
confine their attention mainly to giving him the foundation of scientific 
principles on which he could build, and which would enable him, as he 
should gain experience, to understand and coordinate what he had 
learned, and thus to practice his profession in a truly scientific way. 
The teaching of engineering instead of being done by mathematicians, 
or men with no practical experience in the things they were teaching, 
began to come into the hands of men who were practical engineers as 
well as scientists, and who knew the importance of teaching mathe- 
matics and mechanics in such a way that they could be used as tools 
instead of regarded as abstractions. 

Employers engaged in business in which the applied scientist could 
legitimately be useful, on the other hand, soon learned that many of 
these young men could do things which were entirely beyond the power 
of the unschooled man, even with years of experience. Visiting one of 
our engineering schools some twenty years ago for the first time, one 
of these employers was quite surprised at what he saw, and at the 
work which had been done by the students. Upon leaving the presi- 
dent of the institution, he said that he had been much impressed, and 
thought he would take a number of men of the senior class as soon 
as they were graduated, to which the president replied that he would 
not take these men, because they all had been already spoken for. 

This change is still going on. The enormous development of en- 
gineering, and the growing recognition of. the fact that a university 
or college, instead of giving a man so-called culture only, should train 
him definitely for active work in the world, led to the corresponding 
development of engineering departments. And, certainly, of the work 
of the world, a very large part is dependent upon applied science, and 
the engineering department of a university should be one of its strong- 



SWAIN. 233 

est and largest departments. Teaching which is concrete and practical, 
yet thoroughly scientific, is increasing, and graduates more and more 
capable of immediate usefulness, and at the same time better trained, 
are being turned out year after year. 

Mr. Taylor sweepingly declares that the manufacturers of this 
country do not want anything to do with young men just coming from 
technical schools, — that they would rather not have them, and find them 
of little use in their business. This, I think, is a great exaggeration. 
Mr. Taylor has had a long experience, and an opportunity to come in 
contact with large numbers of manufacturers; nevertheless, I doubt the 
accuracy of this statement that the graduate is not wanted. Certainly 
it is not true, according to my experience, in the case of graduates in 
civil engineering. The railroad companies of this country, who are 
perhaps the largest employers of engineering graduates, desire all they 
can get, and some of them make it a rule to recruit their forces, if 
possible, entirely with such men. Our structural companies prefer 
them — An fact, desire no others if they can get technical graduates 
personally recommended by their teachers. In hydraulic engineering, 
sanitary engineering, and all other branches of the civil engineering 
profession, if we are to judge by the demand for these men, they prove 
themselves immediately serviceable, and in the vast majority of cases 
they advance rapidly enough to demonstrate the fact that their technical 
education has been of great advantage to them. 

A similar condition seems to exist with reference to mining and 
electrical engineering. I am told that your great electrical company 
recruits its engineering staff, if possible, entirely with technical grad- 
uates. As for mechanical engineering, I am sure that the demand for 
such graduates from at least some of our schools is far above the sup- 
ply. If, as Mr. Taylor affirms, the manufacturers of the country do not 
find these men useful, I for one am sorry for the manufacturers. I 
regret that they are so far behind the procession. If the statement is 
true, perhaps that is the reason why those manufacturers consider that 
they need so much protection against the competition of foreign coun- 
tries, like France and Germany, where the technically trained man is 
unquestionably fully appreciated, and where technical schools have been 
longest established. 

President Draper finely expresses the value of a higher education 
when he says: ''With an independent, sane, balanced character, hav- 
ing the elements of success anyway, the advantage of a college train- 
ing cannot be over-estimated." This is even more true with reference 
to a professional education. 



234 ENGINEERING EDUCATION. 

The young man from a technical school should have passed through 
four years of discipline — mental, moral, and physical. 

His physical discipline should have enabled him to restrain his 
appetites, to govern his passions, to make his hand and eye quickly 
responsive to his will, to be a master of himself. His step should be 
firm, his carriage erect, his muscles hard, his body capable of enduring- 
much physical fatigue. 

His moral education should have made him realize the ethical 
principles which should govern a man's acts in this world and regulate 
his conduct toward his fellow men. He should have learned to be 
truthful and honest; thoughtful and forgiving toward others; stern 
and unforgiving toward himself. He should have learned the supreme 
lesson of disinterestedness, and should have gained the power of work- 
ing for the sake of the work and its results rather than for his own 
selfish purposes; he should have learned to look down with something 
like contempt upon the petty things of this world and to realize that 
they amount to little compared with the perfecting of his own character. 

His mental training should have enabled him to estimate justly 
his own powers and to know how to use them. He should have had 
an opportunity to "find himself" and to study his own tendencies and 
innate talents; and he should, therefore, be in a position to direct him- 
self toward the field of human endeavor in which those qualities will 
enable him to do the best work. He should have learned thoroughly 
the fundamental principles upon which are based the branch of en- 
gineering which he is to follow, and the power to apply them intel- 
ligently and correctly. He should be modest, realizing how little he 
knows and how little experience he possesses, yet self-reliant, feeling 
that he has mastered the fundamental principles which he is to apply 
in the world of action. He should be possessed of mental courage, 
having been taught to study a subject with no preconceived ideas or 
prejudices, but solely intent on reaching the truth. He should be able 
to observe accurately, and to reason logically from premises gained 
by observation or otherwise. 

The average engineering graduate, and especially the college grad- 
uate, unfortunately falls far short of this ideal, although it is measur-. 
ably within the reach of all. The causes of his failure are partly due 
to the student himself, partly to his parents, partly to the college. 

Let me call your attention to some of his shortcomings, the reasons 
for them, and the possible remedies for them, as they appear to me. 

Physical Training. 

In the first place we are too apt to understand by the term "educa- 
tion" simply mental education ; moral and physical education or train- 



SWAIN. 235 

ing do not receive the proper degree of attention. In some of our 
colleges and technical schools no effort whatever is made to give physical 
training, to develop a sound physique, to discover and point out physical 
defects, and to apply some systematic corrective. Athletics, as at 
present cultivated, affect only the few men who, voluntarily or by 
solicitation, engage in them. The great mass of students takes no part 
in them, except to look on and applaud when the home team wins. In 
my opinion, every college and technical school should insist on some 
physical training for every one of its students who is not physically 
incapable of it. A man may, by reason of some hereditary weakness, 
or accident, be obliged forever to renounce the hope of being physically 
strong. That is his misfortune, and it may exclude him from the pos- 
sibility of practicing certain branches of the profession; but if he ha5j 
the other qualities which lead to success, he need have no misgivings. 
In such case, he should, by cultivating temperance in all things, and 
by careful observance of the rules of personal hygiene, preserve to him- 
self all the physical vigor possible. The man who is physically most 
robust may not last the longest, or do the best work in the world. 
Success depends, not upon one quality, but upon the proper combina- 
tion, and physical strength is perhaps the quality which may be most 
easily dispensed with. Probably this is the reason why it has been 
neglected. 

Nevertheless, physical training should be insisted upon. It should 
be preceded by a thorough examination of each man, by an expert who 
should prescribe what exercises will best strengthen the weak spots 
and develop the physical endurance which is likely to be such a valu- 
able asset to an engineer. Every student would also gain much were 
he required to take a course in physiology, so that he may be made 
acquainted with the laws of personal hygiene, and know how to take care 
of himself and to regulate his diet. Physical training is perhaps of more 
importance to the engineer than to members of any other profession, 
for the engineer is essentially an out-of-door man, or is likely to be 
one, and his capacity to endure fatigue and hardship if called upon, 
may be an essential element in his success. It is hoped that such a 
course would lead the student to abstain from all but the most sparing 
use of tobacco and alcoholic beverages. He will be fortunate if it leads 
him to renounce them entirely. 

Moral Education. 

In the second place, moral education is, as a rule, much neglected. 

By many teachers or even institutions it appears to be considered that 

this should be left entirely to the home and the church — that the school 

should simply train the mind. This seems to me a fundamental mis- 



236 ENGINEERING EDUCATION. 

take. It is sometimes said that the salvation of a democratic country 
like this lies in a widely diffused and high standard of education. It 
would seem clear, however, that the kind of education upon which our 
salvation will depend is moral education rather than mental education. 
Half knowledge is, proverbially, a dangerous thing; and a smattering 
of economics, history, language, science, or what not, such as most 
students acquire, or even a thorough knowledge of them will not enable 
a man to perform properly the duties of a citizen, if he has failed to 
become imbued with the moral law, and to realize the supreme im- 
portance of his duties toward his neighbor, and the necessity of play- 
ing the game, of life fairly. Dishonesty is not confined to the poor or 
the ignorant ; it is doubtful if it is more frequent among them, on the 
whole, than among the educated and the well-to-do, notwithstanding 
the many and varied temptations which poverty necessarily brings. 

Not only, therefore, should the college or technical school require 
some training in subjects which will imbue students with an apprecia- 
tion of the importance of the moral law, from the professional as well 
as from the personal point of view, but every teacher should consider 
himself, so far as consistent, a moral teacher and should seize the op- 
portunities, which will often come, to enforce a moral lesson. 

Mental Education. 

But coming to what is generally considered as education, that is, 
mental education, msost graduates of our colleges and technical schools 
are no doubt far removed from the ideal which has been sketched. Not 
only have many of them failed to master thoroughly the fundamental 
principles which they are supposed to have learned, but they are not 
able to observe correctly or to reason logically; and they have, further- 
more, so little realization of their own defects and are possessed of so 
little modesty, that they go out into the world with an overweening 
and unjustified conceit, with an unwillingness to begin at the bottom 
and learn a business thoroughly, and with an inability to do cheerfully, 
uncomplainingly, persistently, and enthusiastically, the routine work or 
drudgery of which the greater part of the world's work consists, and 
in the proper doing of which the highest discipline lies. They are 
uneasy if they do not quickly receive promotion; they are impatient of 
the self-taught, unschooled men who work by their sides, although these 
men may be their superiors, and possessed of far more common sense 
than they ; and because they have wasted a great part of the time which 
has been devoted to their education — perhaps some of it in riotous liv- 
ing — they are unable to appreciate the things which the untaught man 
may have learned and which they have still to discover. 



SWAIN. 237 

Measuring Efficiency. 

The engineer, in estimating the performance of a machine, measures 
its value by what is termed its "mechanical efficiency." This is the 
ratio of the effective work done by the machine to the energy which 
is put into it. The higher the efficiency the better the machine. The 
efficiency of a business may be measured somewhat in the same manner ; 
in this case best, perhaps, by the ratio of net earnings to the total in- 
vestment, provided that the investment has been properly expended. 
Of course, one business cannot in this way be compared directly with 
another on the same basis, for in one sort of business the possible net 
earnings may be far smialler compared with the total investment than 
is the case in another kind of business. Nevertheless, there is a sort 
of measure, even if rough compared with the mechanical one. That 
measure is expressed in dollars. Since dollars are desirable or necessary 
to those who have invested in the concern, if a low efficiency is shown — 
lower than should reasonably be expected, or lower than is shown in 
similar concerns similarly situated — there will probably be a demand for 
a change of management. 

I have often asked myself the question: What is the efficiency 
of education? Unfortunately, however, there is no measure for that 
efficiency. The manufacturer takes the raw material out of which 
he manufactures his produce — a log of wood, for example ; — ^he pays for 
this raw material and for the labor expended upon it, in money ; fashions 
it into the form desired, and sells it for other money. The efficiency of 
the entire process can be measured, if not with exactness, at least ap- 
proximately. 

In education the raw material is the student. Labor, enthusiasm, 
and money are expended upon him. The product is the improvement 
which results to him mentally, morally, and physically, and this is in- 
capable of quantitative estimation. Nevertheless, I have for a long 
time believed that if it could be estimated it would be found that the 
efficiency of education is in general very small; that the result in im- 
proved physical strength, morality, power of thought, is but a small 
fraction of the energy expended. 

But even if the efficiency is small, it does not follow that the work 
is not worth doing, or not done well. The light given out by the elec- 
tric light represents less than 1 per cent of the theoretical energy in the 
coal, yet it does not follow that electrical lighting is not worth while. It 
depends upon the intrinsic value of the product. So, in education, to in- 
spire and discipline even a few young men may be worth far more than 
all the effort expended upon them and others, for it means keeping alive 
the torch of learning, and feeding the flame of research, so that the 



238 ENGINEERING EDUCATION. 

treasures of thought and the methods of scientific investigation may be 
transmitted to those who shall follow us, and so stimulate intellectual 
progress in the years to come. 

It is also essential, before judging of the real value of higher educa- 
tion, to estimate the necessary limitations of efficiency, to consider the 
inevitable losses and .sources of waste, and thus to refer the final pro- 
duct, not to a purely theoretical and impossible maximum, but to a 
practically attainable one; in other words, to consider the reasons for 
the observed defects, and to ascertain to what extent they are practically 
remediable. 

These defects seem to arise from four main sources: 1, the student; 
2, the parent; 3, the teacher; 4, the adminstration. 

The Defects Due to the Student. 

The main source of the inefficiency of education and the principal 
justification for the criticisms which have been made upon its results, 
seem to me to lie in the students themselves. They go to the college 
or technical school, where they find afforded them abundant oppor- 
tunities ; but many of them are lacking in will, and are not able to avail 
themselves of them. 

While the manufacturer, by the application of external power, molds 
his raw material into the desired form, education cannot so fashion its 
raw material. The fundamental difficulty with education seems to me 
to be the fact that the only culture or training which does a man any 
good is self-cixlture, — that which he imposes upon himself. The teacher 
may present his subject with perfect clearness, he may give examples 
to illustrate it, he may impress upon his students emphatically the neces- 
sity of doing certain things, he may tell them what to do, and what 
not to do, what mental and moral habits they must cultivate and which 
they must shun, but he cannot make them follow his injunctions. Many 
of them will be found to lack the interest and the will to see the neces- 
sity for self-exertion, and to impose upon themselves the moral and 
mental discipHne without which success in their work will not be at- 
tained. 

This may not be due to any lack of good intention ; they may be 
earnest enough, they may work long hours, but many of them will not 
work in the right way, no matter how often they are shown, nor will 
they take the trouble to learn the methods of logical thinking. They 
are lacking in will. They do not realize that their success will depend 
more upon their wills than upon their brains. 

Dr. W. H. Thomson, in his most interesting book, "Brain and 
Personality," says "we can make our own brains, so far as special 
mental functions or aptitudes are concerned, if only we have wills strong 



SWAIN. 239 

enough to take the trouble." When to this is added that the will, like 
any other function of the human being, can be trained, and its strength 
increased, we have the fundamental principles of self-culture, which 
do not begin to be appreciated as yet, either by students or by teachers. 

If the attempt is made to force the student into a rigid system to 
control his every movement, he may be to some extent disciplined, but his 
interest, his initiative, his spontaneity, and his power of self-control, 
will not be developed. It is the old question whether a young man can 
be trained to self-control by keeping him in subjection, — whether he can 
be trained to govern himself except by letting him try — which seems to 
have been decided, and, on the whole, wisely decided, in the negative. 

A certain amount of military training, for instance, is no doubt of 
advantage to every one;. it develops obedience, promptness, and other 
similar qualities; but it does not train the will, nor teach self-command, 
nor stimulate the highest faculties. Soldiers are not noted for self- 
control as compared with those who have not been exposed to military 
discipline. Indeed, the moment the usual pressure is relaxed they are 
only too apt to show^ the absence of that quality ; nor have many advances 
in learning or in the arts come from military men. At some time in a 
young man's life, he must be thrown upon his own responsibilities, and 
it would scarcely seem wise to defer that point until the end of the 
college course. If he is not ready to learn that lesson in college by the 
time he is 17 or 18 years old, there is a strong probability that he ought 
not to be sent to college at all, but that he should be made to learn the 
lesson, if possible, in the harder school of the outside world; and let 
such a man be thankful if it prove a school of hard knocks. 

Right here it may be remarked that much of the criticism of our 
schools would not be made if it were recognized that the trouble is 
not alone what they do or what leave undone, but that the right boys 
are not always sent to college. There are multitudes of young men 
there who never ought to have been sent — who are not qualified to take 
advantage of the kind of training which the college really ought to give, 
and which is the very best kind for those who can avail themselves of it ; 
whose will and whose natural ability will not justify a higher education ; 
one thousand dollar men who are being given a five thousand dollar edu- 
cation. And there are also multitudes of young men who would take ad- 
vantage of such opportunities, who cannot aflford to do so. 

One of the most hopeful signs in our educational progress, to my 
mind, is the increasing opportunity for deserving young men to get all 
the education which they are good for, provided it does not give them 
more than they are good for. 



240 ENGINEERING EDUCATION. 

Our schools, from the bottom up, should be better designed to pre- 
pare men for their proper vocations in life — industrial, farming, or pro- 
fessional — to guide each man better into his proper field, and to prevent 
him from entering into fields for which he is not suited. It is far better 
to be a good mechanic than a poor engineer or lawyer, and there are just 
as many opportunities for a good mechanic to be advanced to responsible 
administrative positions as for the poor engineer. One of the main 
problems of education would seem to be to guide each man into his 
proper place so far as possible. 

No better proof of what has been said is needed than the fact that 
so many men^who have attained success despite the lack of educational 
advantages, send their own sons to college, realizing how much they 
themselves might have gained from such an opportunity. Unfortunately, 
too many such parents fail to realize how much of their own success has 
been due to the fact that they were obliged to overcome difficulties ; 
they do not train their sons to do the same ; they give them too much 
money to spend, and thus they send them to college unprepared to utilize 
the advantages presented. 

We talk much of opportunity. We do not sufficiently realize that 
necessity is, on the whole, a greater element in success, and a better 
friend, than opportunity. 

There are many other difficulties which arise with the student, but 
I need not dwell upon them. Many students are "sent" to college; 
they do not go, they are sent. They take little interest in their work; 
their main object is to get through. When they study a subject, their 
minds are fixed upon the mark which they are to receive, on the examina- 
tion which they are to pass. Instead of being disinterestedly concerned 
with getting the most they can out of the opportunity which the course 
presents, they will procure old examination papers and a tutor, and get 
themselves coached so that they may be able to scrape through, after 
which they will promptly dismiss the subject from their minds. A long 
experience in teaching has convinced me that no amount of effort by 
the teacher will liave much effect in the case of some students in induc- 
ing them to take a different attitude. 

The fundamental difficulty, then, with the student, is that discipline 
and correct thinking are not things which can be imposed upon him 
from without, but things which he must acquire for himself and which 
he can only learn to acquire for himself by being given the opportunity. 
To use a favorite illustration, the school is not a restaurant where a 
man goes to be filled up, but it is a gymnasium where he finds the appara- 
tus which, if used as he is shown, will develop him as he ought to be 
developed. 



SWAIN. TAX 

The Defects Due to the Parents. 

Right here is where the parent must bear some share of the re- 
sponsibility for the lack of efficiency of education. Time will not per- 
mit of an elaboration of this branch of the subject. It will suffice to say 
that the utmost efforts of the teacher will be of little avail unless with 
the cordial co-operation and support of the home influences. 

Mental discipline at college cannot win against social and financial 
dissipation at home, and all the efforts of the teacher to enforce the im- 
portance of self-culture and training of the will will come to naught 
if the parents think, as many do, that the son is sent to school to buy 
an education as he buys a suit of clothes. To a parent who was finding 
fault with a teacher for the slow progress of his son, the teacher re- 
plied that he could not put brains and will into the boy as well as in- 
struction. 

One great difficulty with the student of engineering arises from his 
lack of knowledge of the practical applications of the subjects which 
he is studying, and further, from the failure to realize the necessity for 
a higher education and the fact that there are many men in what might 
be called the lower ranks of life who are just as bright as he is. If the 
student from a wealthy family could be made to realize that the son of 
the blacksmith around the corner has just as good a brain as he, it 
would not only make him more democratic and a better citizen, with 
more respect for the opinions of others, but it would also make him 
realize that if he wishes to win a high place in engineering, it will be 
necessary for him to get something which the blacksmith's son does not 
have and cannot easily get. Experience would be open to both of them, 
but education might be open to only one. 

The necessity of earning his living, the realization that there are 
plenty of young men in overalls, with as good native ability as he, are 
two powerful incentives which will make a young man appreciate the 
value of an education. In order to develop this appreciation, students 
of engineering should gain some practice in the workshop or in the 
field ; and they should make it a rule if possible from the time they enter 
the college — or better, from the time they enter the high school — to 
spend their vacations in some occupation in which they will be earning 
their own way. 

Defects in the Instruction. 

But while the main difficulty, in my opinion, lies with the student 
himself, and with his parents, there is undoubtedly, in most cases, just 
room for criticism of the teaching in our schools. Among the defects 
commonly found, a few may be mentioned : 



242 ENGINEERING EDUCATION. 

1. There is too great prevalence of courses which are informa- 
tion courses only, and a lack of realization on the part of the teacher 
that his main object should be to teach the student to think. We may 
well reflect upon Locke's statement that the objects of education in 
their relative rank are as follows: 

1. Virtue. 

2. Wisdom. 

3. Good breeding. 

4. Learning. 

Learning — to which we almost confine our attention — placed last. 
And even with reference to learning, we often misplace the emphasis. 
The student must of course be taught many facts, but the main emphasis 
should be laid upon the use which is made of those facts. Logical 
thinking is the main object. If the student gains this, he can reason 
upon new facts and in any subject: if he does not, he simply uses in a 
rule-of-thumb way the few specific facts which he has learned. 

2. There seems to me to be an undue use of the lecture system. 
This is a very serious evil, in my opinion, and unfortunately seems 
to be increasing and to be extending even into the secondary schools. A 
young man may be interested and may gain some information by listen- 
ing to a lecture, but he will not gain much mental training. The use 
of lectures without text books seems particularly futile, except, perhaps, 
in some special subjects. The student should have a text book which he 
is required to study. The exercises in the class room should consist in 
finding out whether he has studied it and mastered it, and if not, why 
not ; and a certain portion of time should be taken in enlarging and ex- 
plaining the subject itself. 

A quiz or a recitation enables the teacher to discover the mental 
defects of his pupils and to point them out. Such a process is indeed 
sometimes discouraging to the student. He would prefer to remain in 
blissful ignorance of his defects, and to go through his courses believing 
that he understands them and is able to think ; but a knowledge of one's 
defects is the beginning of wisdom. We all, of course, have defects, but 
we never remedy them unless we realize that we have them and what 
they are. The student, if he takes the proper attitude of mind, should 
realize that one of the main things that he goes to college for is to have 
his defects pointed out to him, and he should not thereby be discouraged, 
but should have the will to impose upon himself a discipline which 
will correct them. 

Grote, in his history of Greece, makes the following statement with 
reference to the teaching of Socrates: 



SWAIN. 243 

''The Socratic dialectics, clearing away from the mind its fancied 
knowledge and laying bare the real ignorance, produced an immediate 
effect like the touch of the torpedo. The newly created consciousness 
of ignorance was alike unexpected, painful, and humilating — a season of 
doubt and discomfort, yet combined with an internal working and yearn- 
ing after truth, never before experienced. Such intellectual quickening, 
which could never commence until the mind had been disabused of its 
original illusion of false knowledge, was considered by Socrates not 
merely as the index and precursor, but as the indispensable condition of 
future progress." 

Can we improve upon this principle today? Do we sufficiently ap- 
preciate and use it? 

Until the lecture system is largely done away with, or reduced to 
an absolute minimum, many elaborate courses will continue to be ac- 
companied with little result. Of course there is a difference between 
subjects; some require experimental demonstration, and in them lectures 
Jiiay properly form a considerable portion of the course, while others 
should be conducted almost entirely with the use of the text book and the 
recitation. The point is, that except for thoroughly disciplined students, 
who already know how to think and how to govern themselves, lectures 
should, in my opinion, be reduced in each case to the minimum. 

3. Another fault, which seems very common, is that no attention 
is paid in many institutions to teaching the student hozv to study. Young- 
men animated with the best intentions, work hard but ineffectively in 
the endeavor to master the subjects presented to them. It is not suf- 
ficiently realized that Piard work is not what is needed, and will never 
bring a man success unless it is also effective work. A man should 
train himself to work like a well oiled machine, accomplishing a re- 
sult easily, quickly, and without friction. Some instruction with refer- 
ence to the proper methods of study would seem to be essential, yet I 
have rarely known of such instruction being given. 

4. Equally striking is the fact that in many institutions no at- 
tempt is made to teach methods of reasoning in general, except in so far 
as it is done in connection with the special courses. In the Middle Ages 
logic occupied an important part in higher training, and it was generally 
taught in universities up to within a few decades. Since that time it 
seems to have largely disappeared, and in some of our higher schools 
little or no attempt is now made, except, as already stated, in connec- 
tion with individual courses, to teach the student the general rules of cor- 
rect reasoning, in other words, the principles of logic. 

It is true that the study of formal logic was carried entirely too 
far, applied to improper purposes, and, in a word, entirely misapplied 



15. 



244 ENGINEERING EDUCATION. 

and exaggerated. It would be absurd to revive in their old form the 
dialectics of the schoolmen. But that is no reason why logic should 
be neglected; and while the capable instructor may teach much logic 
in a course not sufficiently devoted to that subject, the fact remains that 
many, if not most, of the graduates of our technical schools are not 
capable- of independent logical reasoning, even on scientific subjects. 

It is, I think, not sufficiently recognized, even by teachers, that 
there are certain methods of logical thinking, certain fallacies which 
must be guarded against, certain modes of detecting these fallacies, and 
certain tests of correct results. Most students seem to think that reason- 
ing is a natural function of the mind just as walking is of the legs; 
but even if it be true that "the brain secretes thought as the liver secretes 
bile" it certainly is not true that it naturally secretes logical thought. 
Though a man have a mind, it does not follow that he can think cor- 
rectly. He must have the logical principles upon which correct think- 
ing depends, and there are many reasons for believing that he will 
learn them best by consciously studying the subject of logic rather than 
by taking it as the by-product of other courses. 

Locke, in the preface of his most valuable little book on "The 
Conduct of the Understanding," makes the following remark: 

"I cannot think any parent or instructor justified in neglecting to 
put this little treatise in the hands of a boy about the time when the 
reasoning faculties become developed. It will give him a sober and 
serious, not flippant or self-conceited, independency of thinking; and, 
while it teaches how to distrust ourselves and to watch those prejudices 
which necessarily grow up from one cause or another, will inspire a 
reasonable confidence in what he has well considered, by taking off a 
little of that deference to authority which is the more to be regretted in 
its excess that, like its cousin-german, party-spirit, it is frequently 
united to loyalty of heart and the generous enthusiasm of youth." 

I have talked with many students from many universities, technical 
schools, and preparatory schools, and the replies received from most of 
them indicate that during their whole preparatory and college course 
they have never been given any instruction corresponding to that con- 
tained in this book. The result is that fallacies which any mind trained 
in logic would be able to observe, pass the minds of these men without 
discovery. 

I am aware of the fact that courses in logic are offered in 
many of our universities, and taken by a considerable number of stu- 
dents in the aggregate, but I am also aware of the fact that in many in- 
stitutions, and particularly in technical schools, no such courses whatever 
are offered; and furthermore, I do not know of a single institution in 



SWAIN. 245 

which such a course is required. I am further aware of the fact that no 
amount of instruction would ever result in making some men think 
logically. 

I make a plea for the restoration of logic in some specific form as a- 
required subject in the curriculum of every higher institution of learn- 
ing. 

The study of logic, however, must, of course, be co-ordinated with 
other studies, and with the training of the powers of observation and 
mental discrimination as to the facts; for unless we make sure of the 
facts which constitute our premises, the use of the syllogism may only 
result in multiplying error instead of disclosing truth. 

5. A further difficulty in education arises from the difficulty of 
obtaining good teachers, and in some cases from the practical impos- 
sibility of getting rid of poor ones. A large part of this difficulty is no 
doubt due to the enormous increase, within the past few decades, in the 
number of teachers required, corresponding to the remarkable growth 
of high schools and the enormous expansion of colleges and universities. 
For instance, in 1860 the number of high schools in the United States 
was 44; in 1870, 160; in 1880, 800; in 1890, 2,526, and in 1900, 6,005. 
In 1908 the number of teachers in our higher schools, including col- 
leges, was about seven times what is was in 1870. There appears to be 
a real difficulty in obtaining competent teachers for high schools and 
colleges, particularly in view of the fact that the remuneration offered 
in this profession is much less than that which a capable man may 
expect to obtain in business or in one of the other professions. 

'If a man is not possessed of independent means, and if he wishes to 
marry and bring up a family comfortably, he will find the attractions of 
the teaching profession from this point of view very small. This is 
abundantly shown by the statistics recently given in an article in 
"Science" discussing the status of the assistant professor. The result 
is that many men probably go into teaching because they would not 
succeed in the world outside; and in technical subjects such men may 
often fail to give to the students the qualities necessary for success in 
the world. 

Furthermore, in many of our institutions there seems to be little 
or no attempt made to appoint teachers with reference to their teaching 
ability, or subsequently to exercise any oversight over the conduct of 
their classes or the methods which they use. A man is appointed to a 
teaching position and is allowed to conduct his classes as he pleases. 
This is, of course, more true in some institutions than in others, but I be- 
lieve that at least the criticism is well founded that not enough care is 



246 ENGINEERING EDUCATION. 

taken by those in charge of our educational institutions or of the dep-art- 
ments thereof, to see that really effective teaching is done. 

On the one hand, the teacher may make things too plain to the 
students. When the student meets a difficulty, the teacher may be 
either so anxious to show that he understands how to solve it; or, in 
the kindness of his heart he may be so anxious to help the student, that 
he lifts him bodily over the difficulty without making him exercise his 
own powers at all. The only way that we become strong is by overcom- 
ing difficulties; we do not gain strength so long as our difficulties are 
overcome for us by others ; yet this is too often done in teaching. 

Or, it may be that the teacher is entirely unable to see the real 
difficulty in the mind of the pupil, and therefore, while he may try to 
explain it, he may only succeed in throwing more obscurity upon the 
subject. 

I believe it would be desirable if the teachers in our institutions 
of learning would more often discuss among themselves — perhaps at 
stated meetings — the methods of teaching to be used; perhaps with the 
co-operation and criticism of some of the best students or recent gradu- 
ates. It stands to reason, of course, that every teacher ought to have 
had some training in pedagogics ; yet I believe that such training is rare 
in the teachers in our engineering schools, and it is perhaps too much to 
expect it. But it is not too much to expect that if they begin the career 
of teachers they should then devote some time to the study of the 
subject, or submit for a time, to careful oversight of their work. Un- 
fortunately, academic freedom is too often interpreted to mean, not simply 
the freedom of students to do as they please, but the freedom of teachers 
to do the same entirely without criticism from any one ; and some teachers 
who may be doing ineffective work would probably strongly resent any 
suggestion that they should change their methods. The result of this 
condition is that, in many institutions, courses may be found which 
have been given for years, which the best students and alumni would 
admit to be entirely unprofitable, and which, perhaps, the authorities of 
the institution know to be ineffective ; and yet, with our present methods 
of university organization, there seems to be no way of remedying such 
a situation, any attempt to remedy it being considered either as arbitrary 
interference or a violation of the so-called educational democracy under 
which every man is allowed to do as he pleases. 

Criticism of educational methods should, of course, always be kindly 
and it should also recognize the inherent difference between the conduct 
of education and the conduct of a business enterprise, that in the form- 
er individualism should be encouraged rather than suppressed. In 
corporation management it may be desirable or necessary to reduce the 



SWAIN. 247 

work of the different departments to a rigid routine ; while in education 
such a proceeding would be most unfortunate. Nevertheless, individual- 
ism should not be allowed to override the fundamental principles of ped- 
agogics, nor be carried beyond reasonable limits. It must not be forgotten 
that the teacher is in a position where he can do not only much good, 
but much harm, and care should be taken that the latter is not the 
result of his efforts. 

It is in regard to this phase of the question that the difference be- 
tween the conduct of an institution of learning and of a business is 
perhaps most marked. In the latter there is a concentration of re- 
sponsibility and a supervision of methods. A new president may en- 
tirely reorganize a railroad system, may cause the accounts to be kept 
in an entirely new manner, may readjust the relations of the different 
departments, may require the head of any department to have his 
work done in an entirely different way from that in which it had been 
done before, and all this without offense to any one. Such a method of 
procedure, even if necessary, would be likely to be considered nothing 
short of tyranny in an educational institution, and the limitations to acts 
of this kind have already been suggested ; yet there should be some happy 
medium, some way by which the relations of teachers to each other, 
to the head of departments, and to the president, could be easily adjusted 
and without friction, in such a way that radical innovations might be 
brought about. 

If a new university president has individual ideas, is there any 
good reason why he should not be enabled to carry them out, and why 
he should not be loyally supported in doing so, by trustees and faculty, 
even though his ideas are contrary to individual opinion? Until this 
can be done, until responsibility can be concentrated, and until means 
and methods are under practical control of the persons so made re- 
sponsible, there will be no hope of obtaining the highest efficiency in 
education. 

With reference to this matter I do not know of any more forceful 
statement than that made by Andrew S. Draper in his remarkable sug- 
gestive book on "American Education," in which he says: 

"The very life of the institution depends upon eliminating weak and 
unproductive teachers, and upon reinforcing the teaching body with the 
very best in the world. Unless there is scientific aggressiveness in the 
search of new knowledge some very serious claims must be abandoned 
and some attitudes completely changed. No board ever got rid of a 
teacher or an investigator — no matter how weak or absurd — except for 
immorality known to the public. The reason why a board cannot deal 
with such a matter is the lack of individual confidence about what to do 



248 ENGINEERING EDUCATION, 

and of individual responsibility for doing nothing. But, with three or 
four hundred in the faculty, the need of attention to this vital matter 
is always present. No board knows where new men of first quality are 
to be found ; no board can conduct the negotiations for them, or fit them 
into an harmonious and effective whole. The man who is fitted for this 
great burden, and who puts his conscience up against his responsibility, 
can hardly be expected to tolerate the opposition of an unsubstantial sen- 
timent which would protect a teacher at all hazards, or the more subtle 
combination of selfish influences which puts personal over and above 
public interests when the upbuilding of a university is the task in hand." 

There is another point, however, in connection with the teachers 
which must never be lost sight of, and that is the responsibility of the 
institution to a teacher who has been kept in his position for a consider- 
able length of time. Unlike the work of business, the work of teach- 
ing undoubtedly tends to unfit a man for other occupations. The aver- 
age teacher is out of contact with business affairs and, as a rule, confined 
within the narrow limits of his educational activities. It is true, particu- 
larly in applied science, that many teachers have opportunities for doing 
a considerable amount of outside work and for building up a consulting 
practice, so that they are not wholly dependent upon their teaching, 
and if they should discontinue the latter they would still be able to find 
profitable employment. The number of such men, however, is compara- 
tively few, and I think it is fair to say that the man who has remained in 
teaching for more than ten or fifteen years will generally find himself 
little adapted for anything else. In this lies the great importance of 
carefully scrutinizing the work of the young men in the teaching pro- 
fession. An institution owes it to itself and to them to keep only the 
men who show conclusively their ability to succeed in the profession, 
and to get rid of the others before it is too late. 

If the institution keeps men who are incompetent teachers, beyond 
the age when they are able to find other employment, it assumes a re- 
sponsibility for providing for them in some way which it cannot shirk; 
yet it is very easy to keep a teacher in a subordinate position froni mere 
force of habit or because no better man seems immediately available, 
although it might be easily foreseen that the time would come when for 
the good of the institution he ought to be replaced. 

6. Another common defect in our teaching methods appears to be 
a lack of co-ordination. In many of our higher institutions, each teacher 
seems to be an unrestrained individual, following his own way, not only 
teaching his own subject in such manner as he pleases, but arranging his 
course and planning the ground to be covered without regard to any- 
body else. This criticism, if justified, is more apt to be applicable to our 



SWAIN. 249 

colleges than to technical schools in which a required curriculum is 
prescribed and in which there must be a sequence of studies; but even 
in these there appears to be some room for improvement. 

When absolute independence of teaching is combined with the lec- 
ture system, it may perhaps fairly be said that in many cases the stu- 
dents simply listen to the individual views of their teachers instead of 
being submitted to a systematic and continuous course of discipline, 
which would seem to be the main object of education. It stands to 
reason that there should be close coordination between all the subjects 
taught in any institution, so far as they are related to each other. There 
should be no over-lapping, except as this may, after definite considera- 
tion, be determined to be necessary or useful for purposes of repetition. 
One subject should naturally lead to another, and the sequence from the 
elementary to the difficult should be so continuous that no breaks should 
be perceptible. Whether the elective system or the prescribed curriculum 
is in use makes little difference, so long as each student is made to pass 
through a systematic course, involving continuous mental discipline. 

Defects Due to Administration. 

With reference to administration, the fundamental limitation to 
efficiency seems to me to lie in a fact which has already been referred to, 
namely, that the administrators — that is to say the trustees — have no 
financial interest at stake. This is the fundamental difiference between 
the administration of a college and the administration of a business con- 
cern. Where men have no financial interest they cannot be expected to 
realize fully the responsibility, nor will they be apt energetically to take 
the necessary steps to insure efficiency. 

For this reason, among others, I do not believe that education 
ever can be as efficient as business. I am not unmindful of the fact, 
of course, that there are many men who, if they accept positions on a 
board of college trustees, will take the same pains and feel the same re- 
sponsibility as if they were trustees of a business corporation in which 
their own money as well as the funds of widows and orphans were in- 
vested ; but this is somewhat contrary to human nature and must always 
be the exception. Money, or rather the love of it, may or may not be 
the root of all evil, but it certainly comes very near being the source 
of all efficiency. 

This lack of concentration of responsibilty is found not only in 
boards of trustees, but through the whole educational staff. The sys- 
tem of faculty government is not conducive to it. Instead of one man 
being at the head of one branch of the work and being responsible for 
it, he is in some instances not allowed to carry out his own ideas even 
in matters which concerns his own branch alone, except in regard to the 



250 ENGINEERING EDUCATION. 

subjects which he individually teaches. His views and perhaps those- of 
the entire staff in his own branch, may be overborne by the votes in 
the faculty of men in entirely different branches who, perhaps, know 
little or nothing of the merits of the question involved. 

Of course, this may in some instances prove a benefit, for heads of 
departments are not exempt from error, and are not always wise. The 
point is, that responsibility is divided, and if those upon whom re- 
sponsibility is placed are, as they should be, equal to the task, a division 
of responsibility is always bad. Again, in the words of Dr. Draper, 
"University policies are not to be settled by majority vote. They are 
to be determined by expert opinion." 

Nothing further need be said with reference to this phase of the 
question. Without concentration of responsibility, efficiency is undoubt- 
edly diminished, and without direct financial interest, responsibility will 
not be heavily assumed. When zve combine a lack of direct financial 
interest in the product of education with the fact that the efficiency of 
the process is entirely intangible and incapable of any concrete expression, 
and the further fact that responsibility is divided, we have a combination 
which necessarily ensures a small percentage of efficiency — which con- 
stitutes its principal necessary limitation. 

I have endeavored to outline what the engineering graduate should 
be; what he unfortunately too often is; and have referred to some of 
the difficulties which are met in endeavoring to. reach the ideal. Many 
of my remarks apply, of course, with even greater force to the college 
graduate also. The remedies, so far as remedies are possible, which have 
occurred to the writer have already been partially suggested. They 
may be summarized as follows: 

1. — Every student in a university or technical school should be 
given systematic physical training, and instruction in physiology. 

2. — Education should not be considered to be merely mental educa- 
tion. Moral development should be kept constantly in mind and every 
teacher should not only endeavor lo make himself a moral example, but, 
as far as consistent, to inculcate moral lessons. 

3. — Educational work is not consistent with such concentration of 
responsibility as is possible in business, but it should be striven after so 
far as possible. 

4. — Every effort should be made to cause the student to see the 
necessity for self-discipline and self-exertion, to realize the value of his 
opportunities, the importance of cultivating proper mental, moral, and 
physical habits, the fact that his success will depend upon himself alone, 
the necessity of studying how to work effectively and not simply earnest- 
ly. If he does not reasonably appreciate these things and take advan- 



SWAIN. 251 

tage of his opportunities, he should be promptly taken out of college and 
set to work earning his own living. Both parents and colleges are too 
lenient toward the indolent and the inefficient. 

5. — Courses and examinations should be arranged, so far as possible, 
with the main object of training the student to observe and to think, and 
also, to a sufficient extent, to manipulate. It should be made impos- 
sible to pass in a course by rule-of-thumb work, mere memorizing, or 
cramming. 

6. — The lecture system should be reduced to a minimum, so far as 
practicable. 

7. — Students should be taught how to study, how to work effectively, 
and how to think logically. The systematic study of logic, in some form, 
might well be required in any engineering course. 

8. — Teachers, at all events in the early portions of their careers, 
should be willing, and not only willing, but glad, to submit to some 
scrutiny of their methods and results, should welcome kindly criticism, 
should discuss and study educational methods, and should be willing f'o 
modify their own methods. There should be cordial sympathy and 
harmony between the members of the faculty, and a spirit of earnest 
cooperation. 

9. — Every student should be obliged to follow a carefully planned 
curriculum, involving continuous and systematic mental discipline. This 
does not mean that every student should follow the same curriculum, 
but that each man's course should be systematic in itself. 

10. — Students in colleges and technical schools should not idle away 
their summer vacations, but should devote them entirely or largely to 
work of some kind. The other vacations during the year are sufficient 
for the physical needs of boys of 18 or over. Summer work should be 
either at shop work or at summer engineering camps, or in actual shops 
or other engineering establishments, where the student will see the op- 
portunities for the practical applications of science, and will also learn 
that ability and wisdom are not confined to men who go to college, 
and that if he would surpass the untutored man in the race of life it must 
be by getting an education. 

But when all is said and done, the necessary limitations to efficiency 
in education will remain, these being largely due to the student himself 
and his lack of will, to the parent, who has given the boy no home dis- 
cipline in the days of childhood, to the lack of financial incentive, and 
to the fact that efficiency cannot be measured. 

Our colleges, no doubt, have serious defects — more serious on ac- 
count of the extraordinary rapidity of their growth. But they are earn- 
estly engaged in the attempt to solve a great problem. They may go 



252 ENGINEERING EDUCATION. 

wrong, they undoubtedly will go wrong at times, but they will dis- 
cover their mistakes and correct them so far as practicable. They need 
in many respects to be reformed, and where they need it they will be 
reformed. They have, on the whole, done much good work, together 
with considerable poor work, but they will do better and better work as 
the years go by. 



THE RELATIONS OF CIVIL ENGINEERING TO OTHER 

BRANCHES OF SCIENCE. 

By 

Dr. J. A. L. Waddell. 

Early in 1904 the Organizing Committee of the International Con- 
gress of Arts and Science which was founded under the auspices of the 
Louisiana Purchase Exposition invited Dr. Waddell and Prof. Lewis M. 
Haupt to represent the profession of civil engineering and address the 
Congress upon ''The Relations of Civil Engineering to Other Branches 
of Science" and "Present Problems of Civil Engineering." Although 
the first of these addresses is of a rather abstract nature to claim deep 
interest from engineering students in general, still it contains much that 
can be read with profit by undergraduates of the higher grade, especial- 
ly when they are truly interested in engineering as a learned profes- 
sion. It is, therefore, hoped that it will prove to be both interesting 
and valuable to at least a few of the readers of this compilation of ad- 
dresses. 

Editors. 



253 



THE RELATIONS OF CIVIL ENGINEERING TO OTHER 

BRANCHES OF SCIENCE. 

An Address to the International Congress of Arts and Science at 

the Universal Exposition, St. Louis, Mo., September 21, 1904. 

By 
Dr. J. A. L. Waddell. 

The topic set for this address is "The Relations of Civil Engineering 
to Other Branches of Science." In its broad sense civil engineering in- 
cludes all branches of engineering except, perhaps, the military. This 
is its scope as recognized by two of the highest authorities, viz., the 
American Society of Civil Engineers and the Institution of Civil Engi- 
neers of Great Britain ; for these two societies of Civil Engineers admit 
to their ranks members of all branches of engineering. It is evident, 
though, from a perusal of the Programme of this Congress that the 
Organizing Committee intended to use the term in a restricted sense. 
because it has arranged for addresses on mechanical, electrical, and min- 
ing engineering. But what are the proper restrictions of the term is, up 
to the present time, a matter of individual opinion, no authority having 
as yet attempted definitely to divide engineering work among the various 
branches of the profession. To do so would, indeed, be a most difficult 
undertaking; for not only do all large constructions involve several 
branches of engineering, but also the profession is constantly being more 
minutely divided and subdivided. For instance, there are recognzied 
to-day by the general public, if not formally by the profession, the 
specialties of architectural, bridge, chemical, electrical, harbor, high- 
way, hydraulic, landscape, marine, mechanical, metallurgical, mining, 
municipal, railroad, and sanitary engineering, and possibly other divi- 
sions ; and the end is not yet, for the tendency of modern times in all 
walks of life is to specialize. 

Between Tredgold's broad definition of civil engineering, which in- 
cludes substantially all the applied sciences that relate to construction, 
and the absurdly narrow definition which certain engineers have lately 
been endeavoring to establish during the course of a somewhat ani- 
mated discussion and which would confine civil engineering to dealing 
with stationary structures only, there must be some method of limitation 
that will recognize the modern tendency toward specialization without 
reducing the honored profession of civil engineering to a mere sub- 
division of applied mechanical science. 

255 



256 CVK/L ENGINEERING AND OTHER SCIENCES. 

Without questioning in any way the correctness of the Tredgold 
definition, civil engineering will be assumed, for the purposes of this 
address, to include the design and construction of bridges ; extensive and 
difficult foundations; tunneling; retaining walls; sea-walls and other 
heavy masonry; viaducts; wharves; piers; docks; river improvement; 
harbors and waterways; water supply; sewerage; filtration; treatment 
of refuse; highway construction; canals; irrigation works; dams; geo- 
detic work; surveying; railways (both steam and electric) ; gas works; 
manufacturing plants; the general design and construction of plants 
for the production of power (steam, electric, hydraulic, and gaseous) ; 
the general design and construction of cranes ; cableways ; breakers, and 
other mining structures; the heavier structural features of office build- 
ings and other large buildings that carry heavy loads ; the general prob- 
lems of transportation, quarrying, and the handling of heavy materials; 
and all designing and construction of a similar nature. 

In contradistinction, mechanical engineering should include the de- 
sign and construction of steam engines, machine tools, locomotives, hoist- 
ing and conveying machinery, cranes of the usual types, rolling-mill ma- 
chinery, blast-furnace machinery, and, in fact, all machinery which is 
designed for purely manufacturing purposes. 

Electrical engineering should include all essentially electrical work, 
such as the designing, construction, and operation of telephone and tele- 
graph lines ; electric light plants ; dynamos ; motors ; switchboards ; wir- 
ing; electric devices of all kinds; transmission lines; cables (both marine 
and land) ; and storage batteries. 

Mining engineering should include all under-ground mining work; 
means for handHng the products of mines; roasting, smelting, milling, 
stamping, and concentrating of ores; drainage and ventilation of mines; 
disposal of mine refuse; and similar problems. 

It is impracticable to draw hard and fast lines between the various 
branches of engineering, because, as before indicated, nearly all large 
constructions involve several specialties, consequently no specialist can 
confine his attention to a single line of work to the exclusion of all other 
lines. For instance, the bridge engineer encounters mechanical and elec- 
trical engineering problems in designing movable bridges ; railroading 
in approaches to bridges; river improvement in the protection of piers 
and abutments ; highway construction in the pavement of wagon bridges ; 
architecture in the machinery houses of swing spans ; hydraulic engineer- 
ing in guarding brids^es aofainst fire ; and chemistry and metallurgy in 
testing materials. The railroad engineer encounters architecture and 
structural engineering in depots, roundhouses, and other buildings ; hy- 
draulic problems in pumping plants and bank protection; mechanical 



WADDELL. 257 

engineering in interlocking plants; and electrical engineering in repair- 
shop machinery. The mining engineer invades the field of mechanical 
and electrical engineering in his hoisting, ventilating, and transporting 
machinery; deals with civil engineering in his surveys; and encounters 
chemistry and metallurgy in testing ores. Similarly it might be shown 
that all branches of engineering overlap each other and are inter- 
dependent. 

It was the general opinion among scientists not many years ago that 
engineering was neither a science nor a profession, but merely a trade 
or business; and even to-day there are a few learned men who hold to 
this notion — some of them, mirabile dictu, being engineers ; but that 
such a view is entirely erroneous is now commonly conceded. He is an 
ill-informed man who to-day will deny that civil engineering has be- 
come one of the learned professions. Its advances in the last quarter of a 
century have been truly gigantic and unprecedented in the annals of 
professional development. It certainly can justly lay claim to being the 
veritable profession of progress; for the larger portion of the immense 
material advancement of the world during the last century is due pri- 
marily and pre-eminently to its engineers. 

It must be confessed that half a century ago engineering was little 
better than a trade, but by degrees it advanced into an art, and to-day, 
in its higher branches at least, it is certainly a science and one of the 
principal sciences. 

The sciences may be divided into two main groups, viz., ''Pure 
Sciences" and "Applied Sciences." 

The "Pure Sciences" include : — 

1st. Those sciences which deal with numbers and the three di- 
mensions in space, the line, the surface, and the volume, or in other 
words "Mathematics." 

2d. Those sciences which deal with inorganic matter, its origin, 
structure, metamorphoses, and properties; such as geology, petrology, 
chemistry, physics, mineralogy, geography, and astronomy. 

3d. Those sciences which deal with the laws, structure, and life of 
organic matter; such as botany, zoology, entomology, anatomy, 
physiology, and anthropology. 

4th. The social sciences; such as political economy, sociology, 
philosophy, history, psychology, politics, jurisprudence, education, and 
religion. 

"Applied Sciences" include: — 

1st. Those which relate to the growth and health of organic matter; 
such as medicine, surgery, dentistry, hygiene, agriculture, floriculture, 
and horticulture. 



258 CIVIL ENGINEERING AND OTHER SCIENCES. 

2d. Those which deal with the transformation of forces and in- 
organic matter, viz., the various hnes of engineering, — civil, mechanical, 
electrical, mining, marine, chemical, metallurgical, architectural, etc. 

3d. Those which relate to economics ; such as industrial organiza- 
tions and manufactures, transportation, commerce, exchange, and insur- 
ance. 

Some writers make no distinction between the terms •''Political 
Economy" and ''Economics," but in this address they are divided, the 
former relating to broad subjects of national importance and the latter 
to minor matters and to some of the details of larger ones. For instance, 
currency, the national debt, banking, customs, taxation, and the subsidiz- 
ing of industries pertain to ''Political Economy," while economy of ma- 
terials in designing and of cost of labor in construction, supplanting of 
hand power by machinery, systemization of work of all kinds, adjustment 
of grades and curvatures of railroads to traffic, and time and labor'saving 
devices come under the head of "Economics." 

The distinctions between the pure and the applied sciences are at 
times extremely difficult to draw, for one science often merges almost 
imperceptibly into one or more of the others.. 

The groups of pure sciences that have been enumerated may be 
termed 

The Mathematical Sciences, 

The Physical Sciences, 

The Physiological Sciences, and 

The Social Sciences, 

while the groups of applied sciences may be called 

The Organic Sciences, 

The Constructive Sciences, and 

The Economic Sciences. 

In what follows the preceding nomenclature will be adopted. 

The terming of engineering the "Constructive Science" is a happy 
conception, for engineering is truly and almost exclusively the science of 
construction. The functions of the engineer in all cases are either 
directly constructive or tend toward construction. 

The engineer has ever had a due appreciation of all the sciences, 
imagination to see practical possibilities for the results of their findings, 
and the common-sense power of applying them to his own use. 

Pure science (barring perhaps political economy) is not concerned 
with financial matters, and its devotees often look down with lofty dis- 
dain upon everything of a utilitarian nature, but engineering is certainly 
the science most directly concerned with the expenditure of money. The 
engineer is the practical man of the family of scientists. While he is 



WADDELL. 259 

sufficiently well informed to be able to go up into the clouds occasionally 
with his brethren, he is always judicious and comes to earth again. In 
all his thoughts, words, and acts he is primarily utilitarian. It is true 
that he bows down to the goddess of mathematics, but he always wor- 
ships from afar. It is not to be denied that mathematics is the mainstay 
of engineering; nevertheless the true engineer pursues the subject only 
so far as it is of practical value, while the mathematician seeks new laws 
and further development of the science in the abstract. The engineer 
does not trouble himself to consider space of four dimensions, because 
there are too many things for him to do in the three-dimension space in 
which he lives. Non-Euclidian geometry is barred from his mind for 
a fuller understanding of the geometry which is of use to ordinary man- 
kind. The mathematician demonstrates that the triangle is the sole 
polygonal figure which cannot be distorted, while the engineer, recog- 
nizing the correctness of the principle, adopts it as the fundamental, 
elementary form for his trusses. The mathematician endeavors to 
stretch his imagination so as to grasp the infinite, but the engineer limits 
his field of action to finite, tangible matters. 

The geologist, purely studious, points out what he has deduced about 
the construction of the earth ; but the engineer makes the mine pay. 

The chemist discovers certain facts about the effects of different 
elements in alloys ; but the engineer works out and specifies a new ma- 
terial for his structures. Again, the chemist learns something about the 
action of clay combined with carbonate of lime when water is added, and 
from this discovery the engineer determines a way to produce hydraulic 
cement. 

The physicist evolves the theory of the expansive power of steam, 
and the engineer uses this knowledge in the development of the steam 
engine. Again, the physicist determines by both theory and experiment 
the laws governing the pressures exerted by liquids, and the engineer 
applies these laws to the construction of dams and ships. 

The botanist with his microscope studies the form and construction 
of woods, while the engineer by experimentation devises means to pre- 
serve his timber. 

The biologist points to bare facts that he has discovered, but the 
engineer grasps them and utilizes them for the purification of water 
supplies. 

In short, the aim of pure science is discovery, but the purpose of 
engineering is usefulness. 

The delvers in the mysterious laboratories, the mathematical gym- 
nasts, the scholars poring over musty tomes of knowledge, are not 
understood by the work-a-day world, nor do they understand it. But 



16. 



260 CIVIL ENGINEERING AND OTHER SCIENCES. 

between stands the engineer with keen and sympathetic appreciation of 
the value of the work of the one and a ready understanding of the 
needs and requirements of the other; and by his power of adaptability 
he grasps the problem presented, takes from the investigators their 
abstract results, and transforms them into practical usefulness for the 
world. 

The work of the engineer usually does not permit him to make very 
extensive researches or important scientific discoveries; nor is it often 
essential today for him to do so, as there are numerous investigators in 
all lines whose object is to deduce abstract scientific facts ; nevertheless 
there comes a time occasionally in the career of every successful engi- 
neer when it is necessary for him to make investigations more or less 
abstract, although ultimately utilitarian ; consequently it behooves engi- 
neers to keep in touch with the methods' of scientific investigation, in 
order that they may either perform desired experiments themselves, or 
instruct trained investigators how to perform them. 

The engineer must be more or less a genius who invents and devises 
ways and means of applying all available resources to the uses of man- 
kind. His motto is ''utility," and his every thought and act must be to 
employ to the best advantage the materials and conditions at hand. 
To be able to accomplish this object he must be thoroughly familiar with 
all useful materials and their physical properties as determined by the 
investigations of the pure scientists. 

Many well known principles of science have lain unused for ages 
awaiting the practical application for which they were just suited. The 
power of steam was known long before the practical mind of Watt 
utilized it in the steam engine. 

The engineer is probably an evolution of the artisan rather than 
of the early scientist. His work is becoming more scientific because of 
his relations and associations with the scientific world. These relations 
of the engineer to the sciences are of comparatively recent origin, and 
this fact accounts for the rapid development in the engineering and in- 
dustrial world of the past half century. The results of this associa- 
tion have been advantageous to both the engineer and the pure scientist. 
The demands of the engineers for new discoveries have acted as an 
incentive for greater efifort on the part of the investigators. In many 
instances the engineer is years in advance of the pure scientist in these 
demands ; but, on the other hand, there are, no doubt, many valuable 
scientific facts now available which will yet work v^onders when the 
engineer perceives their practical utility. 

The engineer develops much more fully the faculty of discernment 
than does the abstract scientist, he is less visionary and more practical, 
less exacting and more commercial. 



WADDELL. 261 

It is essential to progress that large stores of scientific knowledge 
in the abstract be accumulated and recorded in advance by the pure 
scientists, so that as the engineer encounters the necessity for their use 
he can employ them to the best advantage. The engineer must be famil- 
iar with these stores of useful knowledge in order to know what is 
available. This forms the scientific side of the engineer's work. 
While he must know what has been done by investigators, it is not 
absolutely necessary that he know how to make all such researches for 
himself ; although, as before stated, there are times in an engineer's 
practice when such knowledge will not come amiss. 

As engineers are specializing more and more, each particular spe- 
cialty becomes more closely allied with the sciences that most affect it; 
consequently, to ensure the very best and most enconomic results in 
his work the engineer must keep in close touch with all of the scientific 
discoveries in his line. 

The early engineers, owing to lack of scientific knowledge, took 
much greater chances in their constructions than is necessary for up- 
to-date modern engineers. There is now no occasion for an engineer 
to make any hazardous experiments in his structures, because by careful 
study of scientific records he can render his results certain. 

In future the relations between engineers and the pure scientists 
will be even closer than they are today, for as the problems confronted 
by the engineer become more complex and comprehensive the necessity 
for accurate knowledge will increase. 

The technical training now given engineers involves a great deal 
of the purely scientific; and it is evident that this training should be so 
complete as to give them a comprehensive knowledge of all the leading 
sciences that affiliate with engineering. There is no other profession 
that requires such a thorough knowledge of nature and her laws. 

Of all the various divisions and sub-divisions of the sciences herein- 
before enumerated and of those tabulated in the Organizing Committee's 
"Programme," the following only are associated at all closely with civil 
engineering : — 

Mathematics. 

Geology. 

Petrology. 

Chemistry. 

Physics. 

Mineralogy. 

Geography. 

Astronomy. 

Biology. 



262 CIVIL ENGINEERING AND OTHER SCIENCES. 

Botany. 

Political Economy. 

Jurisprudence. 

Education. 

Economics. 

Attention is called to the fact that this list contains a number of 
divisions from the four main groups of pure sciences, viz., the mathe- 
matical, physical, physiological, and social, and but one division (eco- 
nomics) from the three groups of applied sciences, viz., the organic, 
constructive, and economic. The reasons why so little attention is to 
be given to the relation between civil engineering and the applied sci- 
ences are, first, in respect to organic science, there is scarcely any 
relation worth mentioning between this science and civil engineering, 
and, second, because the inter-relations between civil engineering and 
other divisions of constructive science have already been treated in 
this address. 

Of all the pure sciences there is none so intimately connected with 
civil engineering as mathematics. It is not, as most laymen suppose, 
the whole essence of engineering, but it is the engineer's principal 
tool. Because technical students are drilled so thoroughly in mathemat- 
ics and because so much stress is laid upon the study of calculus, it is 
commonly thought that the higher mathematics are employed con- 
stantly in an engineer's practice; but, as a matter of fact, the only 
branches of mathematics that a constructing engineer employs regularly 
are arithmetic, geometry, algebra, and trigonometry. In some lines of 
work logarithms are used often, and occasionally in establishing a 
formula the calculus is employed; but the engineer in active practice 
soon pretty nearly forgets what analytical geometry and calculus mean. 
As for applied mechanics, which, as the term is generally understood, 
is a branch of mathematics (although it involves also physics and other 
sciences), the engineer once in a while has to take down his old text- 
books to look up some principle that he has encountered in his reading 
but has forgotten. Strictly speaking, though, engineers in their daily 
tasks utilize applied mechanics, almost without recognition; for stresses, 
moments, energy, moments of inertia, impact, momentum, radii of gyra- 
tion, etc., are all conceptions of applied mechanics; and these are terms 
that the engineer employs constantly. 

There are some branches of the higher mathematics of which as yet 
engineers have made no practical use, and prominent among these is 
quaternions. When it first appeared the conciseness of its reasoning 
and its numerous short-cuts to results gave promise of practical use- 
fulness to engineers, but thus far the promise has not been fulfilled. 



WADDELL. 263 

Notwithstanding the fact that the higher mathematics are of so 
little use to the practicing engineer, this is no reason why their study 
should be omitted from or even slighted in the technical schools; be- 
cause when an engineer has need in his work for the higher mathe- 
matics he needs them badly; besides, the mental training that their 
study involves is almost a necessity for an engineer's professional 
success. 

Geology (with its allied branch, or more strictly speaking subdi- 
vision, petrology) and civil engineering are closely allied. Civil en- 
gineers are by no means so well versed in this important science as they 
should be. This, perhaps, is due to the fact that the instruction given 
on geology in technical schools is mainly from books, hence most gradu- 
ates find difficulty in naming properly the ordinary stones that they 
encounter, and are unable to prognosticate with reasonable assurance 
concerning what a proposed cutting contains. 

Geology is important to the civil engineer in tunneling, railroading, 
foundations, mining, water-supply, and many other lines of work; con- 
sequently, he needs to receive at his technical school a thorough course 
in the subject given both by text-books and by field instruction. 

A knowledge of petrology will enable the engineer to determine 
readily whether building stone contains iron which will injure its appear- 
ance on exposure, or feldspar which will disintegrate rapidly under the 
action of the weather or of acids from manufacturing establishments. 

Next to mathematics, physics is undoubtedly the science most essen- 
tial to civil engineering. The physicist discovers and formulates the 
laws of nature, the engineer employs them in ''directing the sources of 
power in nature for the use and convenience of man." The forces of 
gravitation, adhesion, and cohesion ; the pressure, compressibility, and 
expansibility of fluids and gases ; the laws of motion, curvilinear, rec- 
tilinear, accelerated, and retarded ; momentum ; work ; energy ; the 
transformation of energy ; thermodynamics ; electricity ; the laws of wave 
motion; the reflection, refraction, and transmission of light; and the 
mass of other data furnished by the physicist form a large portion of 
the first principles of civil engineering. 

The function of applied mechanics is to establish the fundamental 
laws of physics in terms suitable for service, and to demonstrate their 
applicability to engineering construction. 

Chemistry is a science that enters into closer relations with civil 
engineering than does any other science except mathematics and physics, 
and as the manufacture of the materials of engineering approaches per- 
fection the importance of chemistry to engineers increases. Within a 
comparatively short period the chemist has made it possible by analyz- 



264 CIVIL ENGINEERING AND OTHER SCIENCES. 

ing and selecting the constituents to control the quality of cast iron, 
cast steel, rolled steel, bronze, brass, nickel steel, and other alloys. The 
engineer requires certain physical characteristics in his materials, and 
obtains them by limiting the chemical constituents in accord with data 
previously furnished by the chemist. The proper manufacture of 
cement requires the combined skill and knowledge of the chemist and 
the mechanical engineer. 

In water supply the chemist is called in to determine the character 
and amounts of the impurities in the water furnished or contemplated 
for use. The recent discovery that the introduction of about one part 
of sulphate of copper in a million parts of water will effectively dis- 
pose of the algae, which have long given trouble, is a notable instance 
of the increasing interdependence of these two branches of science, 
as is also the fact that the addition to water of a small amount of 
alum will precipitate the earthy matter held in suspension without leav- 
ing in it any appreciable trace of the reagent. 

In the purification of water and sewage, in the selection of ma- 
terials which will resist the action of acids and the elements, and in the 
manufacture of alloys to meet various requirements, a thorough knowl- 
edge of chemistry is essential. 

A knowledge of mineralogy is requisite for a clear understanding 
of the nature of many materials of construction, but is otherwise of only 
general interest to civil engineers. 

Geography in its broad sense is related to civil engineering in some 
of its lines, for instance, geodesy and surveying, but generally speaking 
there is not much connection between these two branches of science. 

Astronomy is perhaps more nearly related to civil engineering 
than is geography, although it is so related in exactly the same lines, 
for the railroad engineer on a long survey must occasionally check the 
correctness of his alignment by observations of Polaris, and the coast 
surveyor locates points by observations of the heavenly bodies. 

Biology is allied to civil engineering mainly through bacteriology 
as applied to potable water, the treatment of sewage to prevent contam- 
ination of streams, and the sanitation of the camps of surveying and 
construction parties. The treatment of sewage has been given much 
more thorough study abroad than in this country, but the importance 
of its bearing upon life in the large cities of America is becoming better 
understood; consequently the progressive sanitary engineer should 
possess a thorough knowledge of bacteriology. In important cases, 
such as an epidemic of typhoid fever, the specialist in bacteriology 
would undoubtedly be called in ; but a large portion of the work of pre- 



Pf^' ADD ELL. 265 

venting or eradicating bacterial diseases will fall to the lot of the sani- 
tary engineer. 

Botany comes in touch with civil engineering mainly, if not solely, 
in the study of the various woods used in construction, although it is 
a fact that a very intimate knowledge of this pure science might enable 
a railroad engineer or surveyor to determine approximately the charac- 
ters of the soils from the plants and trees growing upon them. A 
knowledge of botany is of no great value to the civil engineer, and much 
time is often wasted on its study in technical schools. 

Political economy is a science that at first thought one would be 
likely to say is not at all allied to civil engineering; but if he did so, 
he would be mistaken, because political economy certainly includes the 
science of business and finance, and civil engineering is most assuredly 
a business as well as a profession ; besides the leading engineers usually 
are either financiers themselves or advisers to financiers. Great enter- 
prises are often evolved, studied, financed, and executed by engineers. 
How important it is then that they understand the principles of political 
economy, especially in their relations to engineering enterprises ! It is 
only of late years that technical students have received much instruction 
in this branch of social science, and the ordinary technical school cur- 
riculum today certainly leaves much to be desired in respect to instruc- 
tion in political economy. 

Jurisprudence and civil engineering are closely allied, in that en- 
gineers of all lines must understand the laws of business and the re- 
strictions that are likely to be placed upon their constructions by 
municipal, county, state, and federal laws. While most engineering 
schools carry in their list of studies the ''Laws of Business," very few 
of them devote anything like sufficient attention to this important branch 
of science. 

Are the sciences of civil engineering and education in any way 
allied ? Aye, that they are ! and far more than most people think, for 
there is no other profession that requires as much education as does 
civil engineering. Not only must the would-be engineer study the 
various pure and applied sciences and learn a great mass of technical 
facts; but he must also have in advance of all this instruction a broad, 
general education — the broader the better, provided that no time be 
wasted on useless studies, such as the dead languages. 

The science of education is so important a subject for civil engineers 
that all members of the profession in North America, more especially 
those of high rank, ought to take the deepest interest in the develop- 
ment of engineering education, primarily by joining the special society 
organized for its promotion, and afterward by devoting some of their 



266 CIVIL ENGINEERING AND OTHER SCIENCES. 

working time to aid this society in accomplishing its most praiseworthy 
objects. 

The science of economics and that of civil engineering are, or ought 
to be, in the closest possible touch ; for true economy in design and con- 
struction is one of the most important features of modern engineering. 
Every high-class engineer must be a true economist in all the professional 
work that he does, for unless one be such, it is impossible today for him 
to rise above mediocrity. 

True economy in engineering consists in always designing and build- 
ing structures, machines, and other constructions so that, while they 
will perform -satisfactorily in every way all the functions for which they 
are required, the sum of their first cost and the equivalent capi- 
talized cost for their maintenance, operation, and repairs shall 
be a minimum. The ordinary notion that the structure or machine which 
is least in first cost must be the most economical is a fallacy. In fact, 
in many cases, just the opposite is true, the structure or machine involv- 
ing the largest first cost being often the cheapest. 

Economics as a science should be taught thoroughly to the student 
in the technical school, then economy in all his early work should be 
drilled into him by his superiors during his novitiate in the profession, 
so that when he reaches the stage where he designs and builds inde- 
pendently, his constructions will invariably be models of true economy. 

It has been stated that the relations between civil engineering and 
many of the pure sciences are very intimate, that the various branches 
of engineering, although becoming constantly more and more specialized, 
are so interdependent and so closely connected that they cannot be sepa- 
rated in important constructions, that the more data the pure scientists 
furnish the engineers the better it is for both parties, and that a broad, 
general knowledge of many of the sciences, both pure and applied, is 
essential to great success in the engineering profession. 

Such being the case, the question arises as to what can be done to 
foster a still closer affiliation between engineering and the other sciences, 
and how engineers of all branches and the pure scientists can best be 
brought into more intimate relations, in order to advance the develop- 
ment of the pure sciences, and thus benefit the entire world by increas- 
ing the knowledge and efficiency of its engineers. 

One of the most effective means is to encourage the creation of such 
congresses as the one that is now being held, and so to organize them 
and arrange their various meetings as to secure the greatest possible 
beneficial results. 

Another is for such societies as the American Association for the 
Advancement of Science and the Society for the Promotion of Engi- 



WADDELL. 267 

neering Education to take into their membership engineers of good 
standing, and induce them to share the labors and responsibilities of the 
other members. 

Conversely, the various technical societies should associate with 
them by admission to some dignified grade (other, perhaps, than that 
of full member) pure scientists of high rank and specialists in other 
branches of constructive science, and should do their best to interest 
such gentlemen in the societies' objects and development. 

A self-evident and most effective method of accomplishing the de- 
sired result is to improve the courses of study in the technical schools 
in every possible way ; for instance, by bringing prominent scientists and 
engineers to lecture to the students and to tell them just how scientific 
and professional work of importance is being done throughout the 
world, by stimulating their ambition to rise in their chosen profession, 
by teaching them to love their work instead of looking upon it as a 
necessary evil, and by offering prizes and distinctions for the evi- 
dence of superior and effective mental effort on the part of both students 
and practicing engineers. 

There has lately been advanced an idea which, if followed out, 
would aid the development of engineering more effectually than any 
other possible method, and incidentally it would bring into close contact 
scientists in all branches related directly or indirectly to engineering. 
It is the establishment of a great post-graduate school of engineering 
in which should be taught in every branch of the profession the most 
advanced subjects of all existing knowledge that is of real, practical 
value, the instructors being chosen rnainly from the leading engineers 
in each specialty, regardless of the cost of their services. Such spe- 
cialists would, of course, be expected to give to this teaching only a 
few weeks per annum, and a corps of regular professors and instructors 
who would devote their entire time and energies to the interests of the 
school would be required. These professors and instructors should be 
the best that the country possesses, and the inducements of salary and 
facilities for investigation that are provided should be such that no 
technical instructor could afford to refuse an offer of a professorship 
in this school. 

Every modern apparatus needed for either instruction or original 
investigation should be furnished; and arrangements should be made 
for providing means to carry out all important technical investigations. 

It should be the duty of the regular faculty to make a special study 
of engineering literature for the benefit of the profession ; to prepare 
annual indices thereof; to put into book form the gist of all technical 
writings in the transactions of the various engineering societies and in 



268 CIVIL ENGINEERING AND OTHER SCIENCES. 

the technical press that are worthy of being preserved and recorded in 
this way, so that students and engineers shall be able to search in books 
for all the data they need instead of in the back files of periodicals; to 
translate or assist in the translation of all engineering books in foreign 
languages, which, in the opinion of competent experts, would prove 
useful to engineers or to the students of the school; and to edit and 
publish a periodical for the recording of the results of all investiga- 
tions of value made under the auspices of the institution. 

In respect to what might be accomplished by such a post-graduate 
school of engineering, the following quotation is made from the pamph- 
let containing the address in which the project was advanced:-* 

''The advantages to be gained by attendance at such a post-graduate 
school as the one advocated are almost beyond expression. A degree 
from such a school would always ensure rapid success for its recipient. 
Possibly for two or three years after taking it a young engineer would 
have less earning capacity than his classmates of equal ability from the 
lower technical school, who had gone directly into actual practice. How- 
ever, in five years he certainly would have surpassed them, and in less 
than ten years he would be a recognized authority, while the majority of 
the others would be forming the rank and file of the profession, with 
none of them approaching at all closely in reputation the more highly 
educated engineer. 

''But if the advantages of the proposed school to the individual are 
so great, how much greater would be its advantages to the engineering- 
profession and to the entire nation! After a few years of its existence 
there would be scattered throughout the country a number of engineers 
more highly trained in the arts and sciences than any technical men who 
have ever lived; and it certainly would not take long to make apparent 
the impress of their individuality and knowledge upon the development 
of civil engineering in all its branches, with a resulting betterment to 
all kinds of constructions and the evolution of many new and important 
types. 

"'\yhen one considers that the true progress of the entire civilized 
world is due almost entirely to the work of its engineers, the impor- 
tance of providing the engineering profession with the highest possible 
education in both theoretical and practical lines cannot be exaggerated. 

"What greater or more worthy use for his accumulated wealth could 
an American multi-millionaire conceive than the endowment and estab- 
lishment of a post-graduate school of civil engineering?" 



^Higher Education for Civil Engineers. An Address to the Engineering 
Society of the University of Nebraska, April 8. 1904, by J. A. L. Waddell, 
D. Sc, LL. D., D. E. 



WADDELL. 269 

Another extremely practical and effective means for affiliating civil 
engineering and the other sciences is for engineers and professors of 
both pure science and technics to establish the custom of associating 
themselves for the purpose of solving problems that occur in the en- 
gineers' practice. Funds should be made available by millionaires and 
the richer institutions of learning for the prosecution of such investi- 
gations. 

Another possible (but in the past not always a successful) method, 
is the appointment by technical societies of special committees to inves- 
tigate important questions. The main trouble experienced by such com- 
mittees has been the lack of funds for carrying out the necessary 
investigations, and the fact that in nearly every case the members of 
the committees were unpaid except by the possible honor and glory 
resulting from a satisfactory conclusion of their work. 

Finally, an ideal but still practicable means is the evolution of a 
high standard of professional ethics, applicable to all branches of en- 
gineering, and governing the relations of engineers to each other, to 
their fellow workers in the allied sciences, and to mankind in general. 

As an example of what may be accomplished by an alliance of en- 
gineering and the pure sciences, the construction of the proposed 
Panama Canal might be mentioned. Some years ago the French at- 
tempted to build this waterway and failed, largely on account of the 
deadly fevers which attacked the workmen. It is said that at times 
the annual death rate on the work ran as high as six hundred per 
thousand. Since the efforts of the French on the project practically 
ceased, the sciences of medicine and biology have discovered how to 
combat with good chances for success the fatal malarial and yellow 
fevers, as was instanced by the success of the Americans in dealing with 
these scourges in the City of Havana after the conclusion of the Span- 
ish-American war. 

The success of the American engineers in consummating the great 
enterprise of excavating a navigable channel between the Atlantic and 
Pacific Oceans (and concerning their ultimate success there is almost 
no reasonable doubt) will depend largely upon the assistance they re- 
ceive from medical science and its alHed sciences, such as hygiene, bac- 
teriology, and chemistry. 

Geological science will also play an important part in the design and 
building of many portions of this great work, for a comprehensive and 
correct knowledge of the geology of the Isthmus will prevent the 
making of many costly mistakes, similar to those that resulted from the 
last attempt to connect the two oceans. 



270 CIVIL ENGINEERING AND OTHER SCIENCES. 

Again, the handling of this vast enterprise will involve from start 
to finish and to an eminent degree the science of economics. That 
this science will be utilized to the utmost throughout the entire work is 
assured by the character and professional reputation of both the Chief 
Engineer and the members of the Commission. 

Notwithstanding, though, the great precautions and high hopes for 
a speedy and fortunate conclusion of the enterprise with which all con- 
cerned are starting out, many unanticipated difficulties are very certain 
to be encountered, and many valuable lives are likely to be expended 
on the Isthmus before the first steamer passes through the completed 
canal. Engineering work in tropical countries always costs much more 
and takes much longer to accomplish than is first anticipated; and 
disease, in spite of all precautions, is very certain to demand and re- 
ceive its toll from those who rashly and fearlessly face it on construc- 
tion works in the tierra caliente. But with American engineers in 
charge, and with the finances of the American Government behind the 
project, success is practically assured in advance. 

What the future of civil engineering is to be, who can say? If it 
continues to advance as of late by almost geometrical progression, the 
mind of man can hardly conceive what it will become in fifty years 
more! Every valuable scientific discovery is certainly going to be 
grasped quickly by the engineers and put to practical use by them for 
the benefit of mankind, and it is only by their close association with the 
pure scientists that the greatest possible development of the world can 
be attained. 



COLLEGE TRAINING OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERS. 

By 
Dr. Arthur C. Scott. 

This paper, which was published in the Electrical World of April 
18, 1908, is partially reproduced here, primarily, because of its real value 
and, secondarily, to give representation to the electrical branch of engi- 
neering. 

The Editors endorse heartily Dr. Scott's plea for a longer time ir. 
which to give electrical engineering courses ; and they consider that the 
said plea applies equally well to the curricula of all other branches ol 
engineering instruction. 

Dr. Scott was born at Belmont, N. Y., August 31, 1873. A few 
months later his father removed to Summit, R. I., and there and in the 
city of Providence Dr. Scott spent his early youth attending school and 
taking an active part in his father's manufacturing business, thus early 
acquiring facility in the use and care of machinery. From 1888 to 1890 
he taught school, and after a further 3^ear of active business, he entered 
the Rhode Island College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts, graduating 
therefrom with honors in 1895. During his senior year he served 
as Instructor in Chemistry. Immediately on graduation he was appointed 
Instructor in Physics, and served as such until 1879, when he was made 
Professor in the same subject. During these years he developed a course 
in Electrical Engineering to follow a two years' course in Physics. He 
also took charge of the steam heating and lighting plant of the institution 
and improved it. At the same time, during summer vacations, he pur- 
sued courses in Physics, Engineering, Mathematics, and Geology at Har- 
vard University, Clark University, Cornell University, and Massachu- 
setts Institute of Technology. 

In the summer of 1901, having received leave of absence from 
Rhode Island College, he began resident graduate work in Electrical 
Engineering, Physics, and Geology at the University of Wisconsin, com- 
pleting the same with the degree of Ph. D. in August, 1902, his thesis 
being entitled "An Investigation of Rotations Produced by Current from 
a Single-Phase Alternator." 

Returning to Rhode Island College in the fall of 1902, he reorgan- 
ized the courses in Electrical Engineering, and was actively engaged in 



271 



272 COLLEGE TRAINING OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERS. 

their further development when called to the University of Texas in 
1904 to take the chair of Electrical Engineering. 

Quite lately Dr. Scott has severed his connection with the Univer- 
sity and has entered into private practice as a consulting engineer at 
Austin, Texas. At present he is occupied with the rebuilding of the 
Austin dam and several other Texas power plants. 

Dr. Scott's literary work thus far has been confined to the writing 
of a number of important scientific papers for the technical press ; but it 
is to be hoped that some day he may present in book form to the engi- 
neering profession the results of some of his valuable investigations. 

Editors. 



COLLEGE TRAINING OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERS. 

By 
Dr. Arthur C, Scott. 

Lord Kelvin said that the first object of an education is ''to enable 
a man to live," and the second, "to assist other men to live." The 
truthfulness of this statement is nowhere more apparent than when 
considered with respect to the engineer of the present time ; to him is 
due, more than to any other, the great improvements in communication, 
transportation, illumination, and sanitation, which so manifestly assist 
other men to live. Moreover, it must be admitted that the phenomenal 
advance made in electrical engineering within the past few years has 
brought comforts and luxuries to the public at large never before con- 
sidered possible. 

It has been well said that "the recent rapid development of the 
electrical industry owes its vitality to the engineering school. Its gradu- 
ates have done the designing, constructing, operating, and directing 
which have made possible the rapid progress and wise extension in 
the use of electricity." 

Granting that this is true, the questions of vital interest and im- 
portance at present are: 

Does the average university or college technical school properly 
prepare its students for their life work as engineers? 

Does the sequence of courses taught, and do the methods of teach- 
ing afford the maximum opportunity for the student, when viewed from 
a common meeting point of the psychological and pedogogical standards 
within the college, and the practical or operating standards outside it? 

Such questions as these, or something akin to them, have of late 
been the source of voluminous, and no doubt profitable discussion, al- 
though a digest of papers recently published in the American Institute 
transactions, the Electrical World and the proceedings of the Society for 
the Promotion of Engineering Education, appears to show that no com- 
mon ground of agreement has yet been reached. 

A few years ago the manufacturers and heads of corporations 
gave the college graduate but little encouragement because they did 
not appreciate the value of concentrated theory ; the probable reason 
why today they are saying. "Give us technically educated men," and 
are filling vacancies in their factories and systems with college men, is 

273 



274 COLLEGE TRAINING OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERS, 

on the one hand that the college is constantly endeavoring to improve 
methods of instruction, including such practical testing and laboratory 
work as will be more in line with their requirements, and on the other, 
the manufacturer or corporation manager is becoming educated to rec- 
ognize the importance of sound theoretical training. 

The most potent criticisms by large manufacturers and property 
managers of their college graduate employees, at the present time, ap- 
pears to be that they lack a certain kind of human common sense, and 
that they do not know how to adapt themselves to new conditions, or to 
adjust their personalities to the wishes of their superiors ; that they 
lack most decidedly the ability to direct men and are loath to assume 
responsibility which requires originality or initiative on their part. 

To meet such deficiencies several of the large concerns have estab- 
lished special apprenticeship courses, and it has recently been shown 
that with one large company, of those who finished the apprenticeship 
course, 50 per cent are now with the company, and the others are 
with operating or electrical supply companies, or acting as consulting 
engineers or instructors. 

The apprenticeship course attests the validity of the criticism, but 
there are grades of adverse criticism, and it appears that the sort 
presented is the best, for the following reason: A student passes from 
three or four years of cramming, memorizing effort in the high school 
to the college. During the first two years of his college course he is 
likely to go on memorizing as in the high school, and does not really 
learn how to study or concentrate his mind on the work before him 
until some time during the junior year, or possibly the senior year. 
As a matter of fact, it appears that there is not sufficient time for him 
to obtain a knowledge of the fundamental principles underlying a broad 
education in engineering, and at the same time carry on work involving 
much originality, or the direction of men. Therefore, the criticism of 
the manufacturers in general of college graduates is what one familiar 
with professional college work might expect. There appears to be no 
doubt, however, in the minds of all that fundamental principles of 
mathematics, mechanics, physics, chemistry, English,, foreign languages, 
and political science are a necessary part of the engineering graduate's 
proper training, as well as the more specialized subjects of engineering. 

One writer representing a large manufacturing company says : 
"Engineering students usually hate rhetoricals and language courses. 
They should remember that engineers are sometimes called upon to 
fill positions which are worth more than $75 per month, and that in such 
positions they will need to know how to speak and write the English 
language." 



SCOTT. 275 

In attempting then to answer the question as to whether the aver- 
age university or college technical school properly prepares its stu- 
dents for their life work as engineers, a noteworthy distinction should 
be made between the technical courses of the colleges and the technical 
courses of the trades schools. While the latter may take the student 
as far in the strictly technical subjects of engineering as do the college 
courses, these schools do not assume to spend any time upon the so- 
called culture studies that are required in college courses in engineering. 
If the culture studies were removed from the college courses, there 
would be more time available for the student to develop originality 
in his work and possibly to obtain some instruction concerning the 
direction of men, and commercial accounting. 

Under these conditions, however, he is likely to become narrow- 
minded concerning his work; he gains nothing socially which a knowl- 
edge of the culture studies may accord him ; he is limited to a direct 
line of work because he has insufficient training to give him the con- 
fidence in himself to start in any other. His earning capacity "in the 
long run" is decreased proportionally, as has been well shown by sta- 
tistics collected some time ago by James M. Dodge. 

It appears that it is unwise for the university technical school 
to attempt to go much farther toward the manufacturers in attempting 
to turn out students who shall just suit them at the start. In the 
first place it is impossible to graduate men who would suit the re- 
quirements of all the manufacturers or employers. Methods, are differ- 
ent in different places, and require time and attention spent on them 
by anyone, whether student or not, before he is in a position to show 
much originality or power of direction. 

It stands to reason that the general aim of the courses of the 
average technical college at the present time is commendable ; namely, 
the thorough training of the student in all subjects fundamental to 
engineering, with the introduction of such culture subjects as will serve 
to place the student on an even footing, intellectually and socially, with 
men in other professions, and in so far as this result is accomplished 
the college directs its students in the proper way. In other words, the 
graduates have the rudiments of their profession, and the essentials 
of cultured citizens : personal characteristics, environment, and time are 
depended upon for final results. 

The time is at hand, however, when the engineer should be so edu- 
cated as to appreciate the artistic possibilities in his product, and to 
exhibit esthetic sense in design. When the great engineering feats 
of today become the ordinary products of tomorrow, the public will 
demand beauty of design, as well as rigidity and utility of construc- 



17. 



276 COLLEGE TRAINING OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERS. 

tion and installation. And when the demand is made the men' who 
have finished an A. B. course in the university, followed by a full en- 
gineering course, will occupy first positions because of the important 
cultural training which they possess. 

I am thoroughly of the opinion, therefore, that the average tech- 
nical college does not properly prepare students for their future work 
as electrical engineers. The chief reason is that an attempt is made 
to complete subjects in a four-year course, which, if properly taught, 
would require fully six years. It is no wonder the student does not 
develop the spirit of original research — he has no time to do anything 
but attend lectures in the morning and laboratory practice in the after- 
noon for six days per week, and even at that pace does not properly 
cover the ground. The electrical engineer must be more of an all- 
round engineer than any other; he must not only have the funda- 
mental knowledge- of theoretical and applied electricity, but in addition 
must be reasonably familiar with much of civil, steam, hydraulic, and 
gas engineering. 

Moreover, he should have some general instruction concerning the 
public service corporation methods of the division of labor, accounting, 
and general policy toward the public; on the law- of contracts; and on 
the interpretation of specifications and plans concerning both buildings 
and equipment. 

Many of the universities are recognizing the fact that the engineers 
are doing from one-third to one-half more work during the four years 
taken to graduate than are the academic students. This, of course, 
is largely due to the relatively great number of hours spent in the 
laboratory, and commendable changes are already being made in sev- 
eral technical colleges, substituting a five or six-year course for the 
four-year course heretofore required. 

With the ever-increasing additions to the present great store of 
technical knowledge, I have no hesitancy in expressing my belief that 
the institutions that are in the lead with a five or six-year technical 
course will readily find better positions for their graduates than will 
the others. It certainly appears reasonable that in an institution having 
well-equipped laboratories and a corps of competent instructors, it 
is possible for the student during the one or two extra years to do 
much more for himself than would be possible in the same time after 
leaving at the end of a four-year course with what amounts to a too 
hastily swallowed dose of everything taken ; this is evidenced not infre- 
quently by cases of acute mental indigestion and, as complained of by 
the manufacturers, an utter lack of originality, judgment, or logic in 
meeting shop requirements. 



SCOTT. 277 

The longer course gives the student time for some attention to 
athletics, social functions, perusal of current engineering literature, 
a better training in culture subjects and a much more thorough train- 
ing in theoretical and applied engineering, than a four-year course. 
My dew of the situation, considering the best interests of the students, 
is that any college offering technical courses leading to an electrical 
engineering degree, should require the equivalent of a five-year course 
to obtain the B. Sc. degree in electrical engineering, with the further 
provision that the E. E. degree be allowed for an additional year of 
study involving a thesis coverm^ original research work; maintaining 
the standard entrance requirements as at present and the same for all 
students. 

I venture to presume that the two additional years thus covered 
by the student in the university would be of more benefit to him even- 
tually than the first five years following the completion of a four-year 
course if spent elsewhere. 

The answer to the first question mvolves to some extent the answer 
to the second. It is evident, if the presumption be granted that four 
years is too short a time for the college man to complete an electrical 
engineering course, that the methods of teaching might be improved. 
It does not necessarily follow, however, that an increase of time required 
would involve a change in sequence of subjects. 

********** 
So far as laboratory courses are concerned, I believe it to be pos- 
sible to meet the criticisms of employers of students to some extent. 
In some of the engineering laboratories the students have nearly all 
connections made for them, and their chief duty, one and all, in a 
test is to read instruments and record their readings. I think that is 
the limit of poor laboratory instruction. The student regards it as a 
special dispensation at the time, but if he is required to direct a shop 
test later on, he will no doubt act as though devoid of "human common 
sense." He does not know what to do, much less how to direct others. 
The laboratory course that will most nearly meet the adverse criticism 
of employers today is the one wherein the students are required to 
make all machine and instrument connections, and also that requires 
some one of the members of a section to act as director of the test 
at every period, and be responsible to a reasonable extent for the use 
of machines and instruments. This arrangement is not intended to re- 
lieve the instructor from his duties in the least; on the contrary, it may 
add something to them, for the student whose turn it may be to direct 
the test should confer with him beforehand in order to be sure that he 



278 COLLEGE TRAINING OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERS. 

understands the test completely, and also to learn what instruments are 

available for the test. 

It is only by actually directing men that one learns how to do it, 

and if the students gain some practice in this way in the laboratory, they 

may be less criticised after entering practical work. 

********** 

To sum up, then, finally: 

(1) The demands of present-day electrical engineering are such 
as to make the extension of the normal college course of four years to 
five years highly desirable. 

(2) Ta stimulate the interest of the students in professional engi- 
neering early in their college course, and to bring the students into 
contact with professional electrical engineers, the head of the school 
or an associate professor should give a course in electrical engineer- 
ing physics to first-year men. 

(3) Conference hours should be held in connection with theoreti- 
cal work; one conference hour for each two or three hours' lectures 
to juniors and seniors on engineering subjects. 

(4) Laboratory courses in electrical engineering strictly, should 
require the students to arrange all connections to instruments and 
machines in the electrical laboratories, or the connecting of all auxiliary 
apparatus for tests in steam or gas engineering laboratories, together 
with the direction of the section on each test performed by some one of 
the section previously designated by the instructor. 

Such changes, I believe, would materially assist the engineering 
students to attain the scholarship rank of students in other university 
departments and also more successfully to meet the demands of com- 
mercial practice. 



THE PRESENT STATUS OF THE ENGINEERING PROFES- 
SION AND HOW IT MAY BE IMPROVED. 
By 
Dr. J. A. L. Waddell. 

This address was delivered on January 18, 1911, at the University 
of Nebraska on the occasion of the dedication of its new Engineering 
Building. While it is not intended specially for students, nevertheless 
they ought to be interested in it, because it treats of a question of vital 
interest to all members of the engineering profession, both present and 
prospective. 

Editors. 



279 



THE PRESENT STATUS OF THE ENGINEERING PROFES- 
SION AND HOW IT MAY BE IMPROVED. 
By 
Dr. J. A. L. Waddell. 

While engineering is certainly the oldest of all the professions, in 
that it dates back to the time when prehistoric man first performed his 
simple constructions in stone and timber, it is really the youngest of 
the so-called learned professions. In fact, it is only of late years that 
it has been admitted into that honorable company. Not more than 
a generation or two ago it was claimed, even by some engineers, 
that engineering was not a profession but merely a trade; and, truth 
to tell, there was some reason in the statement; but today all that is 
changed, because not only is engineering truly a profession, but it is 
undoubtedly the greatest and most important of them all, in that the 
wonderful progress of the world during the last century has been 
effected mainly by the work of engineers. Where would civilization 
stand today without railroads, electric power, the telegraph, the tele- 
phone, the steam engine, steamboats, irrigation, water-supply, bridges, 
steel buildings, mines, and many other important necessities and luxuries 
too numerous to mention? All these have been evolved in the engineer's 
busy brain and have been developed by his untiring energy. 

But because of its youth as a learned profession, engineering in 
the public mind has not that status which justly is its due; and for the 
same reason it is materially and unnecessarily hampered in several ways. 
Among the various handicaps under which it is still laboring may be 
mentioned the following: 

First: Engineers as a class are insufficiently paid, especially for 
important work. 

Second: The engineer on any construction is not as well protected 
by law, in regard to his compensation, as is either the workman or the 
furnisher of materials. 

Third: There is no established written code of engineering ethics 
to govern the members of the profession in their relations with each 
other and with the public. It is true that there is an unwritten code, but 
it is far from being effective. 

Fourth: The engineering profession is not properly respected by 
the general public. 

281 



282 PRESENT STATUS OF ENGINEERING PROFESSION. 

In regard to the first complaint, viz., that engineers are insuffi- 
ciently paid — ^that is mainly through their own fault. In this particular 
they are not as well off as masons, bricklayers, or even common labor- 
ers, all of whom have organizations to ensure their being properly com- 
pensated for their labor. However, there is now being effected in New 
York City a society termed "The American Institute of Consulting En- 
gineers," whose main object will be to regulate the minimum rates of 
compensation among independent practitioners for all kinds of engineer- 
ing services and to determine exactly what expenses should be borne by 
the client and what by the engineer. Although the "Institute" is un- 
doubtedly governed by selfish motives and may, perhaps, correctly be 
termed a "union" or "guild," it is, nevertheless, a worthy organization; 
and, in my opinion, it is destined to effect considerable good, provided 
that its members will hold together and be governed in their conduct by 
the rules and regulations which it adopts. As great innovations gener- 
ally come slowly, it will probably be several years before the influence 
of the "Institute" begins to be materially felt. 

As for the second complaint, it will take much strenuous and con- 
certed effort by a number of the leading engineering societies before the 
laws of the country can be so changed as efficiently to protect engineers 
against the dishonest practices of unscrupulous employers. The labor- 
ers and furnishers of materials for any construction are protected in 
respect to their compensation by their ability to place liens upon the 
work; but the engineer is not. Whenever a company engaged in con- 
struction gets into financial difficulties, the first man on the job to have 
his pay withheld is the engineer, and he is generally the last under such 
circumstances to receive his compensation — in fact, often he fails ever 
to get it. This is because he recognizes only too well the law's delays 
and the expense of litigation, and that generally, after the other em- 
ployees' accounts are settled, there is nothing left with which to pay 
him. 

Concerning the third complaint, viz., lack of a code of ethics, the 
speaker has a right to consider himself an authority upon the evil effects 
thereof ; for a large portion of the work of his partner and himself is the 
protecting of the firm's interests against the attacks of unscrupulous con- 
tractors and engineers. 

Over and over again, in his career, has he been forced temporarily 
to lay aside the actual work of planning important structures which had 
been awarded to him (the finalities of contracts not having been com- 
pleted) in order to meet the opposition of brother engineers and to frus- 
trate attempts on their part to take away such contracts and secure them 
for themselves. 



WADDELL. 283 

That the public should fail to recognize the high position of the 
Engineer and his consequent rights and dues is deeply to be regretted; 
but that his co-workers in the profession should fall so far short of the 
true measure of nobility is a matter of much greater importance. The 
former condition may be due to ignorance, and therefore excusable; but 
the latter is a flagrant violation not merely of professional ethics, but of 
the common justice and fair play which should always govern between 
man and man. 

This is a condition and not a theory which confronts us; and it must 
be met by engineers in a noble, manly, and generous spirit, each resolv- 
ing within himself to devote his influence and energy to the advance- 
ment of mankind in general and the profession and his fellow members 
thereof in particular by all means in his power, and never to be found in 
that body of carping critics, back biters, and unscrupulous antagonists 
whose sole effort is to pull down and destroy the works, reputations, or 
characters of those who have been successful in their practice or who 
are endeavoring to do what is right and just in thought, word, and deed. 

The carrying forward of any code of ethics is mainly an individual 
matter, and the responsibility for its success lies with each engineer. 
Therefore let each one decide for himself that no possible gain of repu- 
tation or riches is great enough to bias or prejudice him in regard to the 
rights of anyone, and especially of a brother engineer. 

Not until such a rule of conduct becomes general and firmly estab- 
lished among engineers, will the public grant to the profession the rec- 
ognition which is due to it because of the importance of the work which 
its members perform. 

During the last two years there has been on the tapis an endeavor 
to form a professional association of the highest order with the object 
of correcting all the evils from which engineering is suffering and to 
make it a real power in the land. Unfortunately, the organization is not 
yet quite perfected, consequently I do not feel at liberty to mention to- 
day its title nor the names of its principal promoters who have been 
chosen from the leading American engineers in all divisions of the pro- 
fession. However, I am permitted to speak to you of its scope and ob- 
jects ; and ere long these will be made known to the public through the 
technical press. 

Quoting from the proposed constitution, "Its objects shall be: To 
dignify and exalt the profession of engineer in the broad sense, and to 
place it upon the highest plane amongst the liberal professions ; to bring 
the different branches of the engineering profession into closer touch 
and harmony with each other ; to bring American and foreign engineers 
into closer relations with each other; and to secure for the engineering 



284 PRESENT STATUS OF ENGINEERING PROFESSION. 

profession as a whole the recognition commensurate with the importance 
of its services to the world. 

"It will strive to accomplish these objects by all proper, honorable, 
and legitimate ways and means ; by fostering, stimulating, and encourag- 
ing the growth and development of the highest professional spirit, 
ideals, and ethics uniformly in all branches of engineering; by promot- 
ing a better understanding and sympathy between these different 
branches ; by advocating more homogeneous and consistent rules and 
precepts for their guidance in their relations with each other and with 
the rest of the world; by working for general co-operation and solid- 
arity; by fostering an esprit de corps in the profession as a whole; by 
doing all in its power to elevate the standard and promote the interests 
of the profession; and by urging its claims, or those of its more distin- 
guished and eminent votaries, to due and proper consideration for public 
or private honor or recognition." 

That great results can confidently be expected from the work of this 
proposed organization may be concluded from the type of men chosen 
and still to be chosen for membership and from the interest in the move- 
ment thus far shown. To give you some conception of the class of men 
who will belong to this association, the following further quotation is 
made from the proposed constitution: 

''The qualifications of a candidate for Member shall include the fol- 
lowing requirements: 

"He must be a citizen of the United States of America. 

"He must be at least forty years of age. 

"He must have a degree from a University or Technical School of 
recognized standing. 

"He must have a reading knowledge of at least one European lan- 
guage, or else of Esperanto, besides the English language. 

"He must be a member, in good standing, of the highest grade, in 
at least one national engineering or technical society in the United 
States of America. 

"He must have practiced or else taught engineering, or some cog- 
nate branch of technology (such as chemistry) continuously for a period 
of not less than fifteen years, and he must be still engaged actively in 
practicing or teaching or both. 

"He must have been in responsible charge of engineering or tech- 
nical work or design for a period of not less than five years. If teach- 
ing, he must have been in charge of a department in a school of rec- 
ognized standing for a period of not less than ten years. 



WADDELL. 285 

(In the case of candidates who have taught and practiced at dif- 
ferent portions of their careers, two years of teaching shall be con- 
sidered the equivalent of one year of engineering practice.) 

"He must have been identified with work of importance either by 
reason of its magnitude or else because of its novel or special character; 
and it must be shown that he has made a satisfactory record and has 
obtained a good standing in his branch of the profession through his 
technical work. 

(In the case of a teacher of engineering or of technology, the pub- 
lication of original books relative to his branch or branches of the pro- 
fession shall be taken as the equivalent of engineering work.) 

"He must be the author of at least one irnportant original pub- 
lication on some subject or topic related to at least one branch of en- 
gineering. 

"He must have a personal as well as professional record, reputa- 
tion, and standing entitling him to the highest consideration as a pro- 
fessional gentleman who is devoted to the progress and advancement 
of the engineering profession and who is interested in promoting the wel- 
fare and sustaining the dignity of that profession. 

"In general, the intellectual status of the candidate, and the personal 
traits or qualities making him a credit and an ornament to the profes- 
sion of engineering, and, especially, his zeal and devotion to that pro- 
fession, shall be the paramount considerations in determining his fit- 
ness. His financial status shall be of no consideration whatever. 

"Any of the foregoing requirements may be waived in any par- 
ticular case in behalf of a candidate otherwise very desirable; but the 
said waiver shall be only by the unanimous vote of the Board of Di- 
rectors." 

Two of the preceding clauses quoted from the constitution set forth 
clearly and concisely the main objects of the proposed association; but 
there are many minor or subsidiary objects, which were mentioned in an 
address of mine delivered at the first meeting, from which address per- 
mit me to quote, with a few slight and at present unavoidable altera- 
tions, as follows: 

"The augmenting of individual effort among engineers of all 
classes by setting before tftem in membership in this organisation a goal 
to attain and a distinction well worth striving for. 

"Such a result is the inevitable sequence of the materialization of 
our project — and it will come at once, without delay. 

''The establishment of a court of last appeal in all matters relating 
to the profession. 



286 PRESENT STATUS OF ENGINEERING PROFESSION. 

"While our association, of course, could not properly suggest its 
services in this direction, the call will assuredly come; but it will take 
time to establish the organization as the natural means of settling dis- 
puted professional matters. 

''The influencing of legislation, both state and national to promote 
the development of the profession and to take action in worthy enter- 
prises which involve engineering. 

"If our association were to give its formal endorsement to any 
proposed measure, such approval would carry great weight in securing 
legislation; but extreme caution would have to be exercised in all cases 
in order to avoid endorsing projects of doubtful utility and those of a 
chimerical nature. 

"The choosing of engineers for special services, both public and 
private. 

"Here again our association could never legitimately take the initia- 
tive, but it would soon become customary, among those needing expert 
seryices and not knowing how best to secure them, to appeal thereto for 
advice. Such advice should invariably be given after due deliberation; 
and all decisions should be absolutely unbiased by personal leanings. 
Those most fit for the work contemplated should always be chosen; and 
where several names are recommended for the same position, it should 
be made clear whether all are considered to be of equal fitness or else 
what is the gradation. 

''The extending of American engineering influence abroad, especial- 
ly to the Latin-American republics. 

"This object is one of exceeding importance, not merely to the en- 
gineering profession in the United States, but also to the Nation, for 
with the engineers will undoubtedly go trade. 

"Th(^ inauguration of a code of ethics for engineers in general. 

"No engineering society has yet been strong enough to establish 
such a code, but our association in time could succeed where other 
organizations have failed. It is an object well worth striving for, al- 
though certainly difficult of accomplishment. 

"The exchanging of ideas with engineers of foreign countries. 

"This could be done best through the honorary members, who should 
be encouraged to send yearly statements of the progress of engineering 
in general that has been effected in their respective countries during the 
past twelve months. One honorary member in each country repre- 
sented should be appointed as a committee to report thus. 

"Increase of compensation for engineers. 

"Although at first thought this might seem a rather sordid object 
for our association to foster, it is really not so ; because by increasing 



WADDELL. 2SJ 

the value of engineers' services the public is impressed with the im- 
portance of the profession. In my opinion, we should employ every 
legitimate means to further this object. 

"Improvement in engineering literature. 

"By bringing into closer touch the practicing engineers and the 
professors of engineering and by encouraging them to work together on 
engineering literature, great improvements in its quality and scope could 
be effected. 

"Encouraging of original research. 

"Our association by giving its endorsement to any proposed inves- 
tigation of a praiseworthy nature could aid greatly in securing the 
necessary financial aid therefor, either from Governmental or private 
sources. 

"Establishment of testing apparatus. 

"An endorsement by our association of any proposed apparatus for 
testing any of the materials used in engineering would be of service in 
securing the requisite funds for its construction. 

"Many improvements, reforms, and innovations would naturally 
be brought about through papers presented to the association ; and in 
fact such presentation would be the most logical procedure to secure 
action on anything of the kind. To show you that there are numerous 
proper subjects for such papers, permit me to suggest the following 
topics : 

"1. The Study of Foreign Languages in American Technical In- 
stitutions. 

2. The Ethics of Engineering. 

3. Latin-America as a Field for American Engineers. 

4. China, ditto. 

5. Africa, ditto. 

6. How to bring American Engineers into Closer Relations with 
those of Foreign Countries. 

7. How to Bring American Engineers of the Various Groups into 
Closer Relations with Each Other. 

8. How to Avoid the Possibility of Disaster to all Great Public 
or Private Constructions. 

9. Engineering Fees. 

10. The Best Technical Books for Engineers in the Various Spec- 
ialties. (This would be a series of papers or a combined paper by a 
specially appointed committee representing the various specialties in 
engineering.) 

n. How Best to Enhance the Dignity of the Engineering Pro- 
fession in the Minds of the General Public. 



288 PRESENT STATUS OF ENGINEERING PROFESSION. 

12. How to Improve Future Engineering Literature, 

13. Engineering Degrees. 

14. Expert Engineering Evidence in Courts of Law. 

15. Punishment for Unprofessional Conduct. 

16. Post Graduate Schools for Engineers. 

17. How Best to Encourage Original Research in Engineering. 

18. The Necessity for Great Testing Machines and Engineering 
Research Facilities, and How to Procure Them. 

19. How to Improve the Methods of Inspection in the Manufac- 
ture of Steel Construction. 

20. What Should be Done to Develop American Ship-building? 

21. Suggestions as to the Best Manner of Developing the Pos- 
sible Water Powers of the United States. 

22. The Advisability of Improving and Developing the Great 
Waterways of the United States. 

23. Sea-Level versus Locks for the Panama Canal. 

24. How Best to Develop the Resources of Alaska. 

25. How Best to Develop the Resources of the Island Posses- 
sions of the United States. 

26. Improvement in the Teaching of English in Technical Schools. 

27. The Needs in Engineering and Technological Courses of In- 
struction to Attain their Fullest Development. 

28. How Best to Conserve the Supply of American Timber and 
to Economize in its Use. 

29. The Conservation of the Coal Supply of the United States. . 

30. How to Bring Engineers into Closer Relations with the Pure 
Scientists. 

31. The Extent to which Students in the Various Lines of Engi- 
neering Should be Taught Mathematics, and How. 

32. How Best to Develop a Proper Enthusiasm for the Profession 
in Engineering Students and Young Engineers. 

33. The Relations Between Engineering and Political Economy. 

34. The Relations Between the Engineering Profession and Law. 

35. How Best to Control and Limit the Pollution of American 
Rivers and Streams. 

36. ^Engineering and Sociology. 

37. Engineering and Politics. 

38. Aesthetics in Engineering Constructions. 

39. The Study of True Economy in Engineering Designs. 

40. The Relations Between Engineering and Architecture. 

41. The Beautification of American Cities. 



WADDELL. 2S9 

42. The Preparation of a Dictionary of Technical Terms used in 
American Engineering and their Equivalents in Various Foreign Lan- 
guages. 

43. How Best to Develop and Control the Irrigation of the Arid 
Lands of the United States. 

44. The Preparation of a History of Engineering, either as a whole 
or as developed in the United States. 

45. Smoke Prevention. 

46. Uniform Engineering Terminology for English-Speaking 
Countries. 

47. The Furthering of Legislation Conducive to the Advance- 
ment of Engineering and of Public and Private Enterprise. 

"This, is a pretty long list of subjects, but it might easily have been 
made still more extensive. Enough topics have been enumerated, how- 
ever, to show that there will be no dearth of matter to occupy legiti- 
mately the attention and energies of the members of our association. 

"Some of you may have noticed that many of the topics proposed 
come under the scope of political economy; and it may be objected that 
such is not engineers' work, but with that objection I beg emphatically 
to differ. Political economy is a subject that can be treated only by 
men of years, learning, and experience; and Vv^hat body of men can 
there be found so well developed in these lines as the members of our 
proposed organization? It is the engineers who make the world move, 
and who so competent as they to say in what manner it should be made 
to move? There is, in my opinion, no other class of men so well fitted 
as engineers to deal with questions involving political economy. 

*Tt would be eminently right and proper for our association to dis- 
cuss such subjects of great public interest as the Panama Canal, even 
when unsolicited ; because it is the right of every American citizen to 
have his say about how the money which he helps to furnish for such 
enterprises shall be spent. An unsolicited opinion from our association 
on such matters would 'carry great weight with both the public and the 
Government." 

I trust that you will pardon me for devoting most of the time 
allotted my address to a discussion of this proposed organization, be- 
cause I am so deeply interested in the success of the movement, and also 
because I believe it is destined to do far more for the advancement of the 
engineering profession than anything that has ever been attempted. 



THE ENGINEER'S DUTY AS A CITIZEN. 

By 
Rear Admiral Geo. W. Melville, U. S. N., Ret. 

This paper, which was presented in July, 1910, to the American 
Society of Mechanical Engineers, is by one of America's most vigorous 
technical writers; and the elegance of its diction is strikingly apparent. 
Moreover, it treats of a subject of the utmost importance to the de- 
velopment of the Engineering Profession, consequently it should prove 
interesting reading for technical students. 

Admiral Melville was born in New York City, January 10, 1841, and 
was educated at the City's public and grammar schools, and at the Brook- 
lyn Polytechnic College. At the same time he learned the machinist 
trade with James Binns, Esq., of the Brooklyn Machine Works. 

In July 1861, he entered the Navy as third assistant engineer with 
the rank of midshipman. He passed through all the grades in regular 
rotation until in 1881 he attained the position of Chief Engineer, U. S. 
N., with the rank of Lieutenant-Commander, in the meantime having 
served both afloat and ashore in various fleets and squadrons, and having 
done special duty at the Navy Yards. 

Admiral Melville is a noted Arctic explorer. His first Arctic cruise 
was in the U. S. S. Tigress on what is known as the "Hall Relief Expe- 
dition" to Greenland, etc. 

His second Arctic expedition was in the Jeannette through Behring 
Strait. The ship being destroyed by ice, he returned with the ship's 
company to the mouth of the Lena River, in command of the Whale 
Boat. The other two boats, commanded by Lieutenant-Commander De- 
Long and Lieutenant Chipp, U. S. N., were lost. After recruiting his 
part of the company, he returned to the Arctic Ocean and iound and 
buried all the dead of the other two boats. 

His third Arctic expedition was in the Thetis, commanded by Com- 
mander Schley, U. S. N., sent to rescue the remainder of the Greely 
party, which task was effected at Cape Sabine opposite Littleton Island 
in Davis Strait. 

In 1887 he was appointed Chief of the Bureau of Steam Engineer- 
ing with the rank of Commodore, continuing in that office for sixteen 
years and retiring at the age of sixty-two with the rank of Rear Admiral- 

291 



18. 



292 ENGINEER'S DUTY AS A CITIZEN. 

Senior Grade. Since then he has been conducting an office as Naval 
Architect and Consulting Engineer at Philadelphia, Pa. 

In addition to the preceding, Admiral Melville has received the fol- 
lowing distinctions : 

The degree of Master of Arts from Stevens Institute of Technology. 

The degree of Doctor of Laws from Georgetown University, Va. 

The degree of Doctor of Engineering from both the University of 
Pennsylvania and Columbia College, and 

The Military Order of St. Stanislaus of the first class from the Czar 
of Russia. 

Editors. 



THE ENGINEER'S DUTY AS A CITIZEN. 

By 
Rear Admiral Geo. W. Melville, U. S. N., Ret. 

Doubtless everyone present has read Macaulay's famous chapter, 
in his History of England, which describes the conditions obtaining 
in 1685. This chapter is one of the most wonderful descriptions in 
all literature, giving as it does the details of every feature of the life 
of that time, some 200 years ago. I refer to this account because I 
want you to contrast it with the conditions of today, to which we are 
so accustomed that it requires some effort to remember that the com- 
fort and conveniences of the poor man of today are beyond the wildest 
dreams of the wealthiest men of the period described by Macaulay. 
At that time there were no sidewalks, and the streets were unlighted : 
the highways became bogs in rainy weather, and highway robbery 
was almost a recognized profession ; sanitation and sewerage were 
unknown, and refuse heaps accumulated under the windows of the 
great and the wealthy; it was dangerous to go out alone at night; and 
it was still legal to hang the unfortunate who stole a loaf of bread. 

Macaulay remarks in one place that at such fashionable watering 
places as Bath, the nobility had to put up with accommodations at which 
their servants in the year 1850, in which he was writing, would turn 
up their noses. 

Now when we compare the two periods and remember that there 
is hardly a branch of human activity in which there has not been the 
greatest improvement, we are naturally led to ask to whom is the im- 
provement due. 

In all fairness, we should doubtless have to say that most of the 
professions have had a part in the amelioration of conditions, although 
the student of history remembers with regret how the great lawyers 
opposed the remission of the death penalty for what we would now 
consider minor offenses. 

Physicians are undoubtedly entitled to much credit for advances in 
medicine, surgery, sanitation, and hygiene; and we might go on and give 
credit to others. It seems to me, however, that when some future 
Macaulay describes the condition of the United States at the beginning 
of the twentieth century and attempts to award the credit for the exist- 
ing comforts and conveniences, the major part must be given to the 

293 



294 ENGINEER'S DUTY AS A CITIZEN. 

profession of engineering. Within 100 years after the time described 
by Macaulay, Watt had so far perfected the steam engine as to bring 
about the beginnings of the factory system, making possible the low 
cost of clothing and of articles of manufacture of every kind. In a 
century the steamboat and the railroad had come into being. Then we 
had gas for illumination and the telegraph for rapid communication, and 
so on down the line to the present day with its electric light, electric 
railroad, and telephone, every one due to the engineer. 

Added to the superior facilities of communication by railroad and 
steamer came mechanical refrigeration, which enables the densely 
populated countries of the old world to be supplied with meats from 
the great plains of the new, and these superior means of transporta- 
tion have provided the rapid movement of food products so that the 
whole world contributes to the delicacies of our table, no matter where 
we are. 

The contrast between the conditions of the great cities of the period 
described by Macaulay with those of today is startling. Cities were 
without the conveniences which a country town of moderate size would 
now consider absolute necessities. The systems of water distribution, 
sewerage, street paving, etc., are all the work of the engineer, and filtra- 
tion plants obviously are engineering works, even if we consider their 
inception to be due to the medical men. 

Perhaps you ask why I should go into these details which are 
common knowledge, when their mention can give little additional in- 
formation. My reason is that I want to emphasize the facts as a basis 
for the discussion of the question: What does the engineer owe to 
society when society owes so much to the engineer? 

In the early history of the race, when war was the almost con- 
stant condition, it was inevitable that the great warrior should become 
the leader and ruler of the people. As time went on, the engineer 
developed, as we know from the wonderful works of antiquity like 
the great aqueducts, the bridges, tunnels, and roads; but, from the past, 
had come the tradition lodging leadership in the warrior caste, where it 
remained for many centuries, and, indeed, has still a tendency to remain 
in monarchical countries. 

louring the last century, wars have been less frequent, and, due 
to the engineer, commerce has become so prominent that while the 
hereditary nobility still linger on the scene, their titles have become 
almost meaningless. This was particularly noticeable when one of the 
English dukes served in the quartermaster's department during the 
Boer war in a subordinate capacity, and still more so in the war between 



MELVILLE. 295 

Russia and Japan, when only one Russian general was a member of the 
nobility. 

I think you will see the point to which I am leading; namely, 
that in this *'age of the engineer," he should not rest content simply 
with doing the work which makes for our comfort and happiness, at 
the command of others (men who are lawyers or simply business men), 
but that the engineer himself should take a vital and directing part in 
the administration of affairs. I know the objection that an engineer's 
professional work is so engrossing and exacting that he cannot become 
a politician in the sense that a politician is a man who gives all his time 
to pulling wires and filling offices. This is doubtless true, but where 
it is a matter of self-interest, the engineer, like other men, can find time 
for this extra work. 

We Americans are fond of claiming that we have the greatest 
country and the freest and best government in the world. That 
government, however, for its efficiency and integrity depends upon us 
as citizens, and it ought to be a matter of the greatest pride to every 
American to do his part, so far as lies in him, to make the country 
and its government better and happier every year. 

In view of the enormously important part which the engineer plays 
in the life of today, it is incumbent upon him, more than upon most 
other men, to take a vital interest in the work of government and to lend 
his trained ability and judgment to its perfection. I do not mean, of 
course, that the engineer should do routine professional work for the 
government without compensation, but that in the discussion of public 
improvements and the administration of governmental departments, he 
should take an active public stand to influence and guide the non-expert 
part of the population. . 

It is notorious that enormous amounts of money have been squand- 
ered on great public works because they were undertaken in a way 
which every engineer knew must be inefficient and uneconomical. If 
all of us as engineers had a keen sense of our duty in this respect, 
and would properly utilize our experience and ability through the daily, 
press, the magazines, and the reviews by public discussion and in the 
daily intercourse of life, as well as by impressing the truth upon our 
representatives in municipal and national affairs, I believe we should 
accomplish an immense amount of good. 

It will be understood, I am sure, that in this I refer almost entirely 
to the relations of engineers to society in general, and not to other pro- 
fessional men. For many years engineers have been most generous in 
making public to their technical brethren the results of their experi- 
ence, and our own Proceedings are full of instances. It would be im- 



296 ENGINEER'S DUTY AS A CITIZEN. 

possible to name more than a few, but perhaps the most notable- case 
was that of Past-President Taylor in the publication of the results of 
his life work of research on the ''Art of Cutting Metals." 

A problem of foremost importance at the present time is the 
management of labor to secure efficient work and satisfied men. It 
is probable that the direction of more than 90 per cent of the skilled 
labor is in the hands of engineers. Most emphatically is this a case 
where engineers owe a great duty to society. It is, therefore, an es- 
pecial pleasure to recognize that some of our own members have played 
a foremost part in the best work that has been done in devising plans 
for compensating labor which will stimulate the men to their best 
efforts and reward them adequately. The names of Halsey, Taylor, 
Gantt, and Emerson will at once occur to you. 

It would be inappropriate in this brief address to attempt a de- 
tailed discussion of the labor problem, but I feel that I shall voice the 
sentiment of every one present when I say that the effort of every 
patriotic American should be exerted to maintain absolute freedom of 
contract in labor matters as in all others. Just as we are opposed to 
monopoly by capital, so we are to the same thing by labor. 

No reasonable man objects to labor organizations, as such. They 
have undoubtedly been the cause of much benefit to the men. The 
danger with them, as with political organizations, is the formation 
of a machine which utilizes the organization solely for the selfish in- 
terests of the members of the machine. There can be no doubt what- 
ever that many strikes are against the real wishes of the majority of the 
men, who are overborne by the machine and its adherents; and it is 
also true that the net result of nearly all strikes is an actual loss to the 
men. The problem is an exceedingly difficult one and requires the great- 
est wisdom, patience, and tact for its complete solution; if, indeed, 
taking human nature as it is, we can ever hope for its removal from the 
list of worries of the manager of great enterprises. 

Many questions prominently before the public are peculiarly such 
as require engineering knowledge for their proper understanding and 
regulation. The word trust has come to have such a sinister meaning 
that it is only necessary to fasten it upon an enterprise to render it 
criminal in the popular estimation. We have recently heard a great 
deal about the so-called Water Power Trust, the charge being that all the 
available power sites were being grabbed so as to subject our citizens 
at some future time to the payment of tribute for electric power de- 
rived from them. I am not concerned, at the moment, with a discus- 
sion of monopolies, which we all deprecate, but to point out that engi- 
neers know these water powers cannot be made available except by the 



MELVILLE. 297 

expenditure of large sums of money. Indeed, it would be easy to 
point out the fortunes that have been lost in the attempted exploitation 
of these supposedly lucrative natural gifts. The general • public is ut- 
terly misled by statements that these power sites are obtained for 
nothing, the idea being that the development is a matter of small ex- 
pense. Here the engineer can do a work of real benefit by disseminat- 
ing correct information. 

Again, in the consideration of public service corporations, the en- 
gineer knows the cost of installation and operation, and so can discuss 
intelligently whether rates are fair or exorbitant, and whether capital 
represents real investment or water. These are problems of the great- 
est importance, and for their proper solution, the electorate needs train- 
ing that can be given by no one else so well as by the engineer. 

About a year ago, at our Washington meeting, I did what I could 
along this line by pointing out mistakes in connection with navy yard 
organization, and this illustrates very clearly what I am advocating for 
all engineers. Here was a great department of the Government for 
which the annual appropriation now exceeds one hundred millions of 
dollars. Its administration had fallen into the hands of a man who 
started to make changes in the entire administration which would have 
been ruinous to efficiency; and yet, hardly a voice was raised in opposi- 
tion. I even heard of a case where one of our leading engineering 
journals refused to publish a criticism of this system submitted to them 
through a man whom they knew and esteemed most highly, but who 
stated that the author was so situated that he could not permit his name 
to be used. Not only would the magazine not print the article but they 
did not take enough interest in this most important subject to study it 
for themselves and comment upon it. 

I do not mean to imply that engineers never show public spirit 
in such ways as I have suggested: there are too many instances to the 
contrary. Our own Society and others which have taken part in the 
movement for conservation of our national resources have set a good 
example, and other cases could be cited where individual engineers 
have shown commendable enthusiasm. These, however, are mostly cases 
of unusual importance and relatively infrequent. What I am pleading 
for is a habit of mind that will cause engineers to take an active part 
in all public questions, great or small, where their knowledge and 
experience will enable them to contribute to the common good. 

The movement which has been set on foot by Congress to estab- 
lish a Bureau of Mines suggests an opportunity for the engineer to 
take an active part in public affairs. I question whether this idea 
might not be developed a little further by providing for a department 



298 ENGINEER'S DUTY AS A CITIZEN. 

with a Cabinet officer at the head, to be called the Department of .Mines 
and Manufactures, with the scope implied by the title^. 

When we^ think of the enormous values represented by the indus- 
tries which would come within the purview of such a department, it 
seems only reasonable that they should be under the care of a Cabinet 
officer. If we are told that there is already the Bureau of Corpora- 
tions, I would point out that the object of this proposed new depart- 
ment is quite different from that of the existing bureau which thus 
far, in the estimation of many, has done little or nothing to advance the 
interests of manufacturing, but has, in their opinion, disclosed a spirit 
which is almost inimical. The department that I have in mind would 
aim to stimulate improvement and progress in manufacturers and indus- 
tries generally, in somewhat the same way that the Department of 
Agriculture has done for the farmers. 

We have often heard engineers complain that the profession 
did not receive due praise and credit for its splendid work. This is 
true enough, but is the reason not very largely because the engineer 
hitherto has been content to do the work and then fade into the back- 
ground, leaving the talking and the management to the lawyer and 
the politician? With the advance of technical education, engineers 
are more and more becoming the high officials of our large corpora- 
tions; It is to these men, whose talents and trained ability have made 
them the leaders in manufacturing and in business, that the country 
has the right to look for leaders in the affairs of government, and not 
until the engineer of all grades has done his part towards the promo- 
tion of the highest efficiency of the Government can he truly say that 
he is, in the fullest sense of the term, a good citizen of the Republic. 

1. This address was prepared more than a month ago, and since that 
time the bill in Congress referred to above has become a law. The news- 
papers have published an item that consideration was being given to the 
formation of a Department of Public Works. This is along the same general 
lines as my suggestion above for a Cabinet ofiicer to head a department of 
Mines and Manufactures. 



THE POINT OF VIEW. 

By 

Walter C. Kerr, M. E. 

This address, which was delivered to the graduating class of Stev- 
ens Institute of Technology on June 16, 1904, and the two following ad- 
dresses are from the pen of one of America's most prominent mechan- 
ical engineers, whose early death a short time since was a severe loss 
to the engineering profession. Mr. Kerr was a member of the well 
known engineering firm of Westinghouse, Church, Kerr, and Company, 
which has engineered so many great enterprises in this and other coun- 
tries. As can be seen by his writings, Mr. Kerr was a man who was 
truly interested in the development of the engineering profession, and 
especially in the welfare of its student members. 

The teachings of this paper are so sound that every student of ei:- 
gineering should familiarize himself with them and apply them in his 
work as both student and engineer. 

Walter Craig Kerr was born at St. Peter, Minn., Nov. 8, 1858, and 
received his early education in the common schools at that place. In 
1879 he was graduated from Cornell University with the degree of B. 
M. E., then he taught in that institution for three years, first as instruc- 
tor and then as Assistant Professor. In 1883 he entered the employ of 
the Westinghouse Machine Company as salesman; and a year later he 
helped to organize Westinghouse, Church, Kerr and Company, first hold- 
ing the office of treasurer, then that of vice president, and, finally, that 
of president. 

From an article written shortly after his death for the Electrical 
Journal, we quote the following: 

"In about the middle nineties, Mr. Kerr began to formulate his ideas 
of engineering service. He foresaw the approaching era of vast public 
improvements which would call for the creation of great utilities in- 
volving many branches of engineering knowledge. He felt that such 
projects would have to be handled in their entirety, from contemplation 
to execution, without artificial divisions to harbor hazard and prevent 
a true correlation of these many branches into a harmonious whole. 
He believed strongly that the performance of such work should be car- 
ried on in the unselfish spirit of engineering service, unhampered by any 
idea of speculative gain, the compensation to be small but certain, and 
that there should be absolute community of interest between property 
owner and property creator. It was the master and servant principle 

299 



300 THE POINT OF VIEW. 

a priori, under which large and difficult work could be handled .by a 
simple and effective relationship. It was the characteristic of the man, 
plain and true himself, to see the full application of a plain principle. 

"His genius for organization now came into play, and he began 
the work which chiefly marked his life success. His whole conception 
of engineering work was founded on organized, co-operative effort. He 
believed in individuality; no man ever did more to encourage it. He 
had a way of giving to a subordinate authority and responsibility in 
such measure that one soon rose to his fullest powers. But he under- 
stood, too, the limitations of the one man. He felt there were some 
men of but ordinary capacity, who on their own resource performing 
with small success, might in an organization contribute much good. He 
also held strong views respecting certain other men who had worked 
alone successfully, and sometimes brilliantly, but were by temperament 
and habit wholly unfitted for co-operative effort. He had an unerring- 
sense of fitting men together. He believed that they should be selected 
with care, then taken as they were, without trying to remake them, but 
rather to develop what they had to the fullest use. He reposed great 
confidence in his men. He respected them in a manner to compel their 
own fullest self-respect. There never could be in any organization of 
men a greater absence of personal differences than existed in the at- 
mosphere of Mr. Kerr's leadership. He was in the highest degree an 
organization man, around whom men worked with an esprit de corps 
and mutuality of purpose which only a real organizer could inspire. 
Such an organization was indeed essential to the success of his theory. 
It was necessarily of slow growth, and required to be a large aggrega- 
tion of engineers variously specialized in different branches of work, 
as well as architects, chemists, and statistical experts ; in fact, all the or- 
ganized talent which could handle any work from beginning to end. 

"We sometimes think that business and sentiment are wide apart. 
In point of fact, business is a human relationship; and if the judgment 
of men had always been divorced from their emotions, many of their 
great material successes had never been achieved. Mr. Kerr was proud 
of his organization — not only that it prospered materially, but that it 
stood for correct methods of doing work. He was able to see the fruition 
of his ideas in work done. Great undertakings, totaling vast sums of 
money, have been accomplished by his methods. It is the only large 
engineering organization today which by its engineering work alone, 
without financing departments or property-controlling adjuncts, has 
thriven and grown. He may well be regarded as the leading construc- 
tive engineer of his time." 

Editors. 



THE POINT OF VIEW. 

By 

Walter C. Kerr, M. E. 

It is a pleasure to talk to a lot of young men who are about to 
become engineers. It was not so long ago that I came to your age less 
well prepared, perhaps, then any of you. When I look back at th(^ 
engineering education through which men of my time were launched, 
and then consider the training you have had and the opportunities be- 
fore you, I have reason to wonder why I am here. 

I hesitate to advise you. You have already had so much advice that 
I do not know whether you can hold more. What I can say in a few 
minutes will amount to little, hence let me use these minutes to suggest 
that you advise yourselves along certain lines which I will propose by 
way of point of view. If you look straight you will see straight. You 
cannot think wrong and act right. Your perspective will be distorted if 
you haven't the right point of view. 

You are leaving a good institution for a good world. Your Alma 
Mater has built up around you excellent facilities for giving you what 
you need, and other institutions have likewise cared for their own. 

The so-called liberal education has always been highly academic. 
Trade school engineering has been strictly non-academic. The two 
have joined hands fortuitously in our modern institutions. The liberal 
education has become less and the technical more academic, with ad- 
vantage to both. There is, however, danger of engineering education 
growing too academic, for several reasons : One is the disposition to 
include in technical training a liberal education, which of itself is not 
undesirable. Another is that engineering professors often lean unduly 
towards academic views and processes, and thus lose touch with the 
spirit of the engineering world. Greater than either of these is the 
tendency of all things to move in the line of least resistance; and all 
learning which depends upon the intellect alone is more easily acquired 
than that which depends upon other sources. The proof of this need go 
no further than to remember that no literature is finer than that written 
two thousand years ago; no philosophy has fundamentally improved 
upon that of the ancients ; the highest flights of intellect and mathema- 
tics were reached during the ages in which the world was observed 
to be composed of four elements — earth, air, fire, and water. 

301 



302 THE POINT OF VIEW. 

A review of knowledge shows the great preponderance of the in- 
tellectual over the material, and it is only within late centuries, in fact 
almost the past century, that the human mind has seemed capable of 
turning from the lesser resistance of intellectual attainment to the greater 
capacity for physical observation and comprehension. We have but re- 
cently come to the era of intense mental operations, dealing with laws 
and principles which require insight greater than the intellect can grasp 
unless aided by the senses. Contrary, therefore, to common belief, I 
assert that the highest refinement of knowledge follows from the highest 
use of the senses ; and that it has taken thousands of years of pure intel- 
lectual development to attain a state in which the powers of nature 
can, through the human intellect, be made useful to mankind and add 
largely to knowledge. Do not, therefore, get a wrong view of the 
faculties involved in science, in the application of the laws of nature, 
applied mechanics, and the powers of comprehension which underlie en- 
gineering. There is still room for doubt — not debatable here — as to what 
constitutes liberal education. 

I hope for the time when the spirit of engineering as found in 
practice will form a more definite part of engineering education. This, 
I think, must come through the professor keeping in close practical 
touch with the engineering world. There are various ways in which this 
may be accomplished, but I know of none better than by each professor 
doing a reasonable amount of practical work for commercial purposes. 
Under some conditions, this may be consistently accomplished during a 
portion of his time, but I am inclined to think that eventually our pro- 
fessors will devote all their time to instruction while they teach and go 
periodically into the world, a' few years at a time, for practice. Thus the 
professorial life would not be so exclusively educational, and our grow- 
ing engineering institutions may be enabled to enlarge their faculties by 
the devotion to teaching of a portion of the time of men who are primari- 
ly engaged in commercial work. 

Now that you haye your so-called education, what are you going to 
do with it? I cannot tell you, but I can suggest some points of view. 

Begin by forgetting yourself. All thought of self is some form of 
selfishness, and selfishness never produced anything better than more 
selfishness. It often breeds something worse. Genius is all right 
in its way, but it will not do your work. Get a right idea of work. 
Remember that time is the essence of most things, and is not inconsistent 
with thoroughness. 

We hear much about opportunities. They are everywhere plentiful. 
Remember that your opportunity is the little one that lies squarely in 
front of you, not the large one which you hope to fiiid further along. 



KERR, 303 

Many a man is surrounded with opportunities who never seizes one. 
There are traditions that Adam, William Tell, and Sir Isaac Newton 
each had an affair with an apple, but with different results. 

Your first duty is always to that which lies across your path. The 
only step which you can take in advance is the next one. This leads 
to a simplicity of action which is commendable. Don't ramble. 

The refinement of thought which is apt to follow high training often 
leads the mind to overlook simplicity and even to seek complexity. The 
wealth of modern appliances tends likewise ; and it is thus easy to acquire 
that over-refinement, often termed theoretical, as against the simplicity 
which is called practical. 

From one point of view all graduates can be divided into two 
classes: those who think their knowledge is a little long for their op- 
portunities; and, those who think almost anything is a little long for 
their knowledge. Both are apt to think that the knowledge they have 
acquired will become the essence of performance. You will soon find 
that knowledge hasn't much to do with effectiveness. It is necessary, 
only as words are essential to the expression of thought. You will find 
knowledge a good tool, but not the vital force with which you perform. 
You will fall back upon human effort and action, and find that it is the 
human-engine and not the knowledge-engine that does the work. 

Cultivate singleness of purpose. This is more important than you 
may think. It is intuitive with the comparatively ignorant, and often 
absent in the highly trained. We are frequently surprised at the great 
competency of the ignorant contractor or foreman, on whom judgment 
is often passed by saying that he is a practical man and gets results. 
Analysis will show that his best quality is singleness of purpose, which 
leads him to do vigorously the one thing before him, without distrac- 
tion following from knowing or thinking about too many other things. 
The broadening power of education and training increases the range of 
contemplation, but unless the power of concentration is cultivated, there 
follows a tendency to scatter instead of to acquire that singleness of 
purpose which leads to effective action. David Starr Jordan has said: 
"The purpose of knowledge is action. But to refuse action is to secure 
time for the acquisition of more knowledge. It is written in the very 
structure of the brain that each impression of the senses must bring with 
it the impulse to act. To resist this impulse is to destroy it. * * * '' 
This lack of balance between knowledge and achievement is the main 
element in a form of ineffectiveness which, with various others, has 
been uncritically called degeneration." Thus President Jordan shows 
how even much more than a little knowledge may be a dangerous thing. 
The highly-trained man, therefore, needs, as a complement to his train- 



304 THE POINT OF VIEW. 

ing, unusual powers of concentration, in order that the virtue of single- 
ness of purpose may not be lost. This faculty a man must have or ac- 
quire himself. It is not in the books. It cannot be taught. It can only 
be suggested by precept and example. 

From directness of purpose naturally follows diligence in getting 
what you go after, and not being easily turned aside by resistance. When 
you are getting what you go after, get it all. Avoid the mediocrity of 
compromise. Be thorough and stand for full competency in everything, 
from main essentials to details. Just so far as education, assisted by 
concentration, contributes to singleness of purpose it is useful, but where 
by length, breadth, or depth it dilutes human effort, it lacks value. It 
is, therefore, not so much the question how much educational training 
you have as it is how you use it. Some can use a little with great effect, 
because their point of view is right; others scatter so badly that they 
cannot use their knowledge at all; while some distorted minds seem 
to have a faculty for misapplying a large amount of acquired knowledge 
through complicated processes full of error. To be right, you must be 
100 per cent, right. Charity may pardon human nature its percentage 
of delinquency but this is a human matter. The laws of nature, 
mathematics, and engineering do not pardon anything. The man may, 
therefore, be absolved from censure, but his work must stand the rigid 
test of inviolable law. Nor is it too much to say that you must be 
right the first time. Much of our engineering is only done once, and 
it must be done right that once. A man who has learned by experience 
to do a thing deserves no credit for doing it right. He is then only 
a repeating machine. Real power is characterized by ability to per- 
form right the first time that which a man never did before. Such 
performance involves the power to assimilate and adapt experiences, of 
more or less like or unlike kind, in a way to bring forth correct re- 
sults. This is the true use of experience, wherein a man is a thinking, 
active power, and not a mere repeater. 

Clearness of thought is an essential often lacking. This, too, fol- 
lows from concentration and singleness of purpose. Many minds con- 
fuse themselves with a wealth of ideas, grading from the well formed 
to hazy, indistinct conceptions. You can clear your mind by proper 
habits of thought. Train yourself to separate essentials and non- 
essentials and confine your consideration to the essentials, to dis- 
tinguish between what you know and what you only vaguely surmise, 
clearly eliminating opinion from facts. Nothing is more helpful than 
conference with yourself, in which you determine what you think of 
your own thoughts. This is aided by the moderate cultivation of sys- 
tem — thinking in an orderly manner, beginning at the beginnings end- 



KERR. 305 

ing at the end, and being sure to have a middle. With this there should 
be no slavery to system, but let each find his own logical way. 

Besides what are commonly known as ideas, men have intuitions — 
sometimes called impressions or opinions — which they cannot readily 
prove. These, I believe, are identical with reason, except that while 
reason iis composed of a sequence of distinct ideas, each capable of 
expression, intuitions follow from the capacity of the human mind to 
integrate small ideas and impressions, each of which is too small to 
stand alone, or to be readily expressed, but which integrated form a 
concrete mental impression, called an intuition, and which is of exactly 
the same character as reason, except that it is composed of smaller and 
almost intangible units. Do not, therefore, discard intuitions as in- 
ferior to reason. Analysis will sometimes develop intuition into an ex- 
pressible, logical thought. 

You have all had ideas and you will have more of them. Some 
ideas seem bigger than others. These mental forces, like other forces, 
only do work when in motion. Hence your ideas are only valuable when 
put into execution, and this often requires more talent than to originate 
them. Some men seem to consider their ideas so good that they will 
execute themselves. 

A point of view is involved in the power to rationalize. This again 
is a thing which each man does for himself in his own best way, and 
its essence consists in asking one's self whether the thing is reasonable. 
It is a great check upon error. It applies equally to nearly everything 
of which engineering is composed. It is the power of the human mind, 
after performing in more or less systematic and conventional ways, to 
stand off and look at results and ask one's self whether they are reason- 
able. One man will figure that certain material weighs two hundred 
tons, and believe it. Another will say that there is something wrong 
in that, for it all came on two cars. 

Every young man comes sooner or later upon a dilemma, in which 
he is more or less drawn in opposite directions by his confidence on the 
one hand and timidity on the other; a desire to perform backed by the 
courage of his convictions, but on the other hand resisted by his in- 
ability to see his way through in orderly progression to a desired end. 
This is about the time to show your nerve. Don't be dazed and baffled, 
but make a start. Use your wits and you will get somewhere, and if 
you cannot always see the end, it will constantly get nearer and plainer 
when you go as far as you can see and then see how far you can go. 

Another point of view concerns engineering expression. This may 
be through designs, drawings, mathematical determinations, or words, 
and finally by work done. The lamest of these is words. All engineer- 



306 THE POINT OF VIEW, 

ing is so non-literary in character that the use of language is too -much 
neglected, leading to expressions ttat do not properly convey thought. 
In engineering, it is not rhetoric but diction that makes expression 
clear, and diction is best learned from the dictionary. It is well for a 
young engineer to cultivate his vocabulary, and learn to use words in 
their right sense. They are then usually understood, even by those 
who have less knowledge. A word of caution, however, against assum- 
ing that a lack of facility of expression can cloak an absence of know- 
ing what you think. Engineering documents, specifications, and letters 
are full of mis-statements due to the careless use of language. Con- 
ciseness cannot be over-estimated." Brevity is desirable, but not at the 
expense of clearness. Conversely, a certain degree of facility should 
be acquired in reading the words of others. Some seem incapable of 
understanding plain language when spoken or written. Anyone per- 
sistently failing to understand the language of others has limitations 
needing correction. . 

One of the worst attributes in engineering, and which is funda- 
mentally born of conceit, is the tendency to fasten error, censure, and 
responsibility on others. There are times when a man needs to stand 
himself up in front of himself and ask : What is the matter with me ? 
The capacity of any man to admit his own error and frailty of judg- 
ment is a measure of strength rather than weakness. 

Perhaps no personal attributes are of greater importance in the 
conduct of the business affairs of an engineering life than good cheer 
and non-contentiousness — not only because these are right and agree- 
able, but because they enable a man to work better and to be better 
understood, and because they add weight to his opinions. There is a 
certain reasonable optimism of manner which makes a man and his 
ideas welcome, even though tliey must of necessity sometimes be criti- 
cal. To vote aye and believe that things can be done makes a man 
helpful to others and to enterprises. Discontent is not a sign of pro- 
gression. 

Each of you probably has a preconceived notion of following some 
line of engineering. Be careful about your self-analysis. The field 
is large and has room for all of the various types of men, some of 
whom incline to constructive operations, others toward inventive, some 
to the contemplative. Again, within all these divisions, some tend to- 
ward professional and others toward trade work. No one can ad- 
vise what is best for you. This you must find out for yourself. 1 
cannot help, however, a certain predilection in favor of a young man 
being just an engineer, and not any particular kind of an engineer — 
not specializing while too young, but developing along versatile lines, 



KERR. 307 

ready to turn his hand equally well to any task within his general 
scope. In this, there is a good deal in the point of view, and the man 
who believes he can apply himself in one direction about as well as 
another will come nearer doing it than one who thinks he cannot. 

When you start your practical work, you will doubtless try to 
improve things. That is a legitimate purpose, if not overworked. I 
am not going to attempt to tell you what needs improvement, but the 
one improvement that most things need is in the line of sufficiency. 
You can think this over for yourself and apply it where it fits. 

There is another point of view seldom considered. It relates to 
environment and the power to vary. It is pertinent to engineering. 
Man ascended through and exists under the laws of an organic evolu- 
tion, which occurred almost entirely in early geological ages, under 
water, within a few miles of shore, under substantially constant tem- 
perature, constant pressure, and uniform food supply, and thus in about 
the simplest possible environment. It was caused, primarily, through 
the force known as the power to vary; and the reason that evolution 
spanned the space from the simple cell to the vertebrate animal in so 
short a time was that this power was not resisted by complex environ- 
ment. When organisms emerged from the water to the more complex 
environment of the land, and as environment grew constantly more 
intricate, its resistance retarded evolution and resulted in fixation of 
species until ordinal evolution practically ceased. It is the complexity 
of the environment of the world that presses upon you and tries to hold 
you back from the exercise of your native power to vary. A good 
environment is certainly less harmfully resistant than a bad one, but 
remember that environment is not a force. It is not a producer. You 
are the producer. Whatever your power to vary, environment will only 
resist and reduce it. 

Therefore, remember that all the good you accomplish is going to 
come out of yourself. You cannot borrow it, and you cannot make it 
out of that which has been poured into you by education or otherwise. 
All that you receive is only a certain quantity of knowledge, acquired by 
education, experience, or other training, which will have a certain in- 
fluence upon what comes out of yourself as your own. It is the in- 
herent capacity to perform with your own brain which will make you 
what you become, and not the mere transmission of that which you 
have acquired. Your knowledge, therefore, is of little avail until you 
make it inherently a part of yourself through mental assimilation and 
utilization. The clearer you comprehend these things, the more readily 
you can make use of them as against the process of mere acquirement 
with a vague motive that in some way or other what you acquire may 



19. 



308 THE POINT OF VIEW, 

be of benefit or that environment will be the force that makes your 
talent effective. Some have gone through experience without acquir- 
ing it ; and many a man who has received an education has not got any, 
because he allowed it to be a thing apart from his personality — and it 
slipped away. , 



KNOWLEDGE AND ACTION. 

By 

Walter C. Kerr, M. E. 

This address was delivered on June 8, 1906, to the graduating class 
of Staten Island Academy. It gives in very condensed form much 
sensible advice to young men, and is conspicuous for the wisdom of 
the author's statements, reasoning, and conclusions. His utterances 
are well worthy the attention of every thinking man, young or old, 
technical or non-technical. 

Editors. 



309 



KNOWLEDGE AND ACTION. 

By 

Walter C. Kerr, M. E. 

Some days come so seldom that they become occasions of special 
mark. The day of graduation is one. It sometimes seems as if young 
people come to halls of learning with little, and in a few years take 
away much. This is not quite what happens. You come with much 
or little as the case may be and you take away just what you brought, 
except for the pruning, training, and straightening out which your 
natural possessions have undergone by the process known as education. 
Meanwhile, you have acquired some facts and these are, of course, 
an added measure to what you formerly had. Many of these you will 
unfortunately forget, but do not think that they have not done you 
good while they stayed with you, nor that their effect is measured only 
by their endurance. 

The only objection I have to commencements, whether of academies 
or colleges, is the intimation that they are the end of education and 
the beginning of the world. Education is a continuous performance, 
the first acts of which are within halls where systematic guiding gives 
direction and method to personal endeavor. One reason why many 
who have had much schooling are poorly educated is that they stopped 
learning, and by a strange anomaly they seemed to stop at commence- 
ment. 

The education you get through books and teachers is elementary. 
That which you gain yourself may be profound. Profundity is wholly 
a matter of quality, not quantity. The world is too full of a number of 
things, and you will find more tendency to scatter than to concentrate. 
It is, therefore, well to do whatever you do with all your might and 
regard nothing as too small to be done the best you know how. Clever- 
ness will not accomplish much. Brilliancy only serves permanently to 
polish good things and temporarily to polish bad ones. Grace and 
culture lend charm to anything, but none of these things make for 
progress. Advancement only comes through good hard work, diligent 
application, faithful performance, correctness, accuracy, and that fine 
display of judgment which flows only from a well ordered mind, capable 
of thinking independently, acting resolutely, and fearing nothing. 

311 



312 KNOWLEDGE AND ACTION. 

At this commencement time it is well to commence to forget the 
standards set by the completion of printed pages and the measure fixed 
by examinations. The world's problems do not come systematically and 
in the preferred order of easy ones first, followed by a gradation of the 
most difficult. They come by chance and they hit you endwise, side- 
ways, and with all degrees of percussion. You must meet them, solve 
them, get good out of them, and utilize them as the means to further 
achievement. 

Some persons devote much time to passing opinions stating what 
they think. It does not make much difference what you think about 
things. It is what you do about them. There is even danger of think- 
ing too much unless thought is intuitively coupled with action. Your 
thoughts may sometimes wander harmlessly, but your acts need be right 
all the time. If you can now begin with the elementary education you 
have received in a good academy, or even the more extended but still 
elementary education which some of you will receive in college, you 
can proceed to make your personality effective in doing those things 
which your natural tendencies lead you to do best. You will then, in 
the course of perhaps twenty or more years, become fairly educated as 
measured by the standard of human performance related to the average 
span of life. 

Humanity is composed of all kinds of people possessing widely 
different temperaments, tastes, and abilities. It is well they are not 
all alike. Anyone will achieve the greatest effectiveness through the 
opportunities and training which develop native powers. Any other 
training is liable to stunt the natural growth. Variation in progressive 
development should be in the direction in which one tends to vary. 
This assists in the survival of the fittest, the survival of the unlike, the 
survival of the effective. 

Manifestly there must be as many kinds of education as there are 
types of people, and fortunately the number is not so great but that 
they can be readily supplied, at least within our higher institutions. So 
long as education was confined to one channel, those whom the channel 
precisely fitted were greatly benefited; those whom the channel some- 
what fitted were somewhat benefited; those to whom the channel was 
a misfit were injured, because during the formative period of their de- 
velopment their native power to vary was resisted, their minds forced 
away from their natural trend, and energies which could have been 
potent for good in certain directions were dwarfed by the compulsory 
exertion of uninteresting, unproductive effort. This results in a kind 
of mediocrity which is stagnation. You can't make anything good of a 



KERR. 313 

man except to make him better in that which he is. You can't unmake 
him and make him over again. 

If it be held that one must needs have the so-called liberal educa- 
tion in order to be well rounded, it is pertinent first to determine wheth- 
er roundness is what is really wanted and the fitness of the subject to 
the end. We don't build walls of round stones. We hew them square 
— some are better rough hewn and others are better when polished. 
It is not well to attempt to take all the corners off humanity. They 
should be left on to dent something. 

When it is observed that in our modern universities which offer 
to students wide ranges of educational courses, less than one-quarter 
follow classical pursuits when left to free choice, and that over three- 
quarters elect professional and industrial education, there is good reason 
to believe that this is about the proportion in which minds are fitted to 
receive benefit from the acquirement of the respective classes of knowl- 
edge and training. I, therefore, maintain that instead of decadence 
in the humanities they are elevated by this natural selection, because 
their representatives become only those whose minds are fitted to take 
such education and who will, therefore, conspicuously represent the best 
possibilities of classical training applied to those to whom it is adapted. 

In addition to the several agreeable and desirable attributes of 
classical training, its fundamental benefit comes through the melting 
down and recasting of thought, which to some minds is a stimulating 
and cultivating process. There are other processes of like kind and 
quality that are adapted to other minds, notably the melting down of 
the laws of nature and recasting them as applied science^ Another 
cultivating and most useful process, too little practiced, is the melting 
down of one's own thoughts and so recasting them that they can be 
understood. 

We have heard too much about knowledge for its own sake versus 
knowledge for use. All knowledge is for use. All education is for 
action. The engineer uses mechanics and thermo-dynamics in a certain 
direct way. The architect uses art and constructive knowledge in a 
similar way. The lawyer uses his knowledge in a less material way. 
The classical or philosophical man uses his acquirements in a different 
way, but if he does not use them they are useless. The older I grow 
the more I think there is no such thing as liberal education, liberal arts, 
or liberal anything, as distinct from specialized departments of knowl- 
edge. As to the so-called specialized courses, these are only names. 
They are no more special than the humanities. Some are scarcely so 
highly specialized. All education is liberal or all is technical, accord- 
ing to our definitions, but all is for use. 



314 KNOWLEDGE AND ACTION. 

We hear too much about standards. They are all right in their 
way, if they do not tend to crystallize error. What we want are best 
methods. They can never become quite fixed, but must always be 
getting better in order to be the best. They must be effective and 
efficient rather than old or new. Precedent has no inherent merit. 
Only merit has merit. Times, conditions, and arts change so rapidly 
that the presumption is against rather than for the older methods. 

One must have the reserve power to do more than conventional 
duties, to double or treble the pace when necessary ; but there should 
be no wasting of energy by trying to do it all the time. In large 
organizations, men of fair attainments but who have shown no surplus 
capacity are dropped to make room for others who may be more avail- 
able in time of emergency. 

There are many who would rather rest on an excuse than find a 
way. Too many find reasons for not doing things. As Grant once said 
regarding the first requisite of a general, he must love to fight, be- 
cause there are always as many reasons for not fighting as for fight- 
ing, and one must fight to win. So you must prefer to do things and 
not be content with reasons why you can't. 

To youth this old world is always a new country. Pioneers must 
plunge in, turn over what to them is new soil, and make of it the best 
they can, always in the spirit of industry and honesty, with that aspira- 
tion for betterment which invariably turns for good that which is worthy 
and turns to naught that which is undesirable. Thus you plunge, step, 
or wander into a new world; and the impetus with which you enter it 
is a factor* in the vis viva with which you will carry through. Repose 
has its virtues, but you will always find it easier to slow down than to 
speed up. 

One-half of all human performance is composed of perception, 
and the other half is acting upon what you perceive. Never mind the 
formula. Go straight for what you see and you will always find your 
duty right in front of you. Stay by it until it is done. Do it simply 
and you will do it easily and well. Never mind your knowledge. It 
isn't your power. It is only a tool and it is inert. You are the power, 
and if you don't exert yourself and assert yourself you can't wield 
anything. Your own human effort is the only thing which will appeal 
to and move others, and it is only when you move others that you move 
anything. Don't be impersonal, but be yourself with all the fire that 
nature gave you, and don't be afraid to be yourself — your best self — 
and let the world judge as it may. You are never so much yourself 
as when you forget yourself, and you are then unselfish. 



KERR. 315 

All things are more or less hard to do, and work only will do 
them. Get a right idea of work. Don't trust to cleverness. It is 
worthy, but it will not do your work. Accomplishment demands single- 
ness of purpose and concentration. All exterior forces tend to diver- 
sion from these essentials. Here you come in again to show your 
triumph of personality over environment. No matter what you do, 
from the humblest incidental thing of the moment to the consummation 
of your greatest ambition, the same principles of human activity apply. 
All will be clear sailing until you meet resistance and sometimes you 
will run against it hard. Then you will find whether you have nerve 
or nerves. No one can help you much. Your measure is being taken 
and you win or lose upon the cumulative ability which you can muster 
as the total assemblage of native talent and all that has become a part 
of you through all the influences that ever entered your life. See to 
it that they all shape one way. You will meet some disappointments 
through your own faults and some because the world is not exactly 
just, but whoever gets approximate justice in the world is doing very 
well. The perfectionist has a hard time. He meets continual disap- 
pointment, especially if he is chiefly worried about the imperfections 
of others. 

The nearest you will ever get to perfection is when you get out of 
your powers all that there is in them. You will find them stronger the 
less you dilute them with borrowed force. The good you accomplish 
must be a part of yourself, and whatever you may receive by way of 
knov/ledge, experience, and training must be assimilated until it is a 
part of your own living being before it can be made productive. The 
capacity to perform is essentially a human creative function and not an 
act of transmission of what you may have acquired. 

You are going to breast a gale, of advancing and ever changing 
arts, with all their complexities, anomalies, and uncertainties, where 
''nothing there is can pause or stay." Thus duty is made harder to per- 
form than if you lived in the quiet conventionality of a less enterpris- 
ing land. Difficulties and their overcoming bring opportunities, and 
who would ask for ease at the price of stagnation? I believe it was 
Tacitus who created a solitude and called it peace. However powerful 
and individual you make your personality, it must in general conform 
to the well determined laws of effective human procedure. Freaks 
never win. You may more or less follow the systematized results of 
practice, but you must obey the laws of purpose, of motive, of integrity, 
of unselfishness, of diligence, faithfulness, and fidelity to trust. Trans- 
gression of these will be punished, while decadent variation will only 
produce an imitation of the real thing, and all imitations are bad. 



316 KNOWLEDGE AND ACTION. 

I assume that those to whom I am talking are capable of being 
many times as good and effective as they are now. Effectiveness gets 
fairly weighed and compensated, financially or otherwise, by the world's 
scales. You will never be paid for what you are going to do, and you 
will be only partially compensated for what you have done. There must 
be a profit in everything, and therefore ability to perform must be 
bought at one price and sold for another. With growth compensation 
will grow, and no small part of growth is the ability to rise and do the 
things that need be done, no matter what they are; to rise from sel- 
fishness to unselfishness, from smallness to greatness, and from anything 
to competency. 

There is a wrong notion in the world as to the sequence of some 
things. You must first perform and re-perform and prove that you 
can perform and keep it up before you will get credit for performing. 
A large proportion of the people in the world cannot do certain things 
because they have never tried, and many have thought they could not 
because they did not do very well the first time they tried. There is 
nothing pertaining to your general conduct in the world that you can't 
do. People become what their motives lead to. Consciously or un- 
consciously your motives make you, and your practice will follow from 
what you have thus been made. The personal shaping of one's self 
along lines however worthy cannot be accomplished through initial in- 
tent alone. It requires a burden upon the mind, a mission in the heart 
and a continuous motive in life's work. 

If these things be good, then they are good to contemplate, but 
contemplation of itself avails nothing. If you ever expect to get any- 
where you must move on. It is not always necessary to step lively, 
but keep moving. There is a tendency in human nature to expect to 
find a stopping place. The spirit of moving on is the spirit of pro- 
gression; the spirit of optimistic dissatisfaction. It is necessary to 
cultivate restlessness in order to have a moving spirit. The fault as well 
as the fate of the rolling stone is not so much because it rolls as it is that 
it usually rolls down hill. When you move be sure of your direction. 

Progress should mean something. It should mean real advance- 
ment in thought, habit, and action — perceptible to one's self and to 
others. This moving on may be adapted in one form or another to 
suit different temperaments. To some it should mean moving onward 
within few and perhaps limited lines. To others the onward move- 
ment will involve the constant taking up of new and broad lines of 
effort. To many it is refreshing as they progress from one period of 
life to another to awaken new interests, to have new ambitions, new 
fields to conquer. While to some the activity of this added effort might 



KERR. 317 

seem too strenuous, there is little doubt that to others it is an enrich- 
ing process which by recreative and interesting variation revives and 
stimulates mind and body to a condition of existence in which they last 
longer than if allowed to go to seed. 

The least duty of everyone is to make the world just a little better. 
This can't be done by merely approving and imitating what others have 
done. You will never do it looking backward. Ambition seeks new 
seas to sail. 

No one should dare to prejudge what any person may do, and to 
everyone are open all the possibilities of all that has not yet been per- 
formed. The lessons of the beaten paths are yours for the pains of 
acquirement. The inspiration of the successful achievement of others 
is yours for the heed. The opportunities of the future belong to you 
for the seizing. All things are always possible and your aspirations 
should ask 

"Is the day of our hope not near — when we 

"Will seek for the truth and find 
"That the soul's best gifts are lost in the waste 

"Of a backward looking mind? 
"Shall we make new paths where none are made, 

"Shall we strive and at last prevail, 
"And at some time build our ship, please God — 
"Where there are new seas to sail?" 



THE NEXT STEP. 

By 
Walter C. Kerr, M. E. 

This address of Mr. Kerr's gives much sensible advice to young 
men about to start on the practice of their profession and tells them 
something of what to do and what not to do, guiding them in the right 
direction and pointing out the stumbling blocks and pitfails that lie 
in their path. Few papers concentrate as much solid advice and valu- 
able precepts in such a small a space as does this one. To appreciate 
it thoroughly one shoidd read it several times in order to impress its 
many wise suggestions deeply upon his memory. 

Editors. 



319 



THE NEXT STEP. 

By 
Walter C. Kerr, M. E. 

This is an important day to nineteen of those whom I am address- 
ing, and it is just as important as any other day to the rest of us. 
Perhaps the most important moments in our lives are those in which 
we resolve to do something, and the importance is made permanent 
when action follows the intent. 

I am not going to say much about education. You have perhaps 
heard as much about that as is good for you, and I have no doubt you 
have received some, even much. In a way, I am interested in educa- 
tion, but I have more interest in those who receive it. 

Educators and institutions are seeking the ideal education, and 
they will find it when they find ideal men, collected in ideal groups, 
and doing everything in an ideal way. 

There can be no doubt that some methods are better than others, 
and some facilities excel others, but after all the best thing for any 
man is that which fits him best. Men differ through so wide a range 
that about the best approximation to high excellence is the presence 
of large opportunity, facility, and the personality of many men. With 
these factors related by force of gravity, attraction, cohesion, friction, and 
other physical and mental phenomena each person gets that which best 
fits him and sticks the closest to him. 

Therefore in a certain way the ideal education is the education 
you get, and from a certain set of conditions one man gets one kind 
and another man another. In these relationships, apparently similar 
causes do not necessarily produce similar effects, and the effects dif- 
ferentiate largely along the line of the characteristics of the receiving 
body. 

Each of you, therefore, operated upon by similar forces during the 
past few years, has acquired a different kind of education. This is not 
so apparent now, amidst the levelling tendencies of the conventionalities 
by which you are all brought to a certain stage at a certain age, sur- 
rounded by the same conditions, and therefore apparently all more or 
less alike. 

321 



322 THE NEXT STEP. 

This day, however, marks your individual departure from condi- 
tions common to you all, and five years will find you translated along 
many different radii. Ten years will find you far apart. 

Up to this time, some one else has done the directing. Hereafter, 
you will direct yourselves. Perhaps, under certain terms and condi- 
tions of employment, you will think some one else is directing you in 
a rather firm way, but after all you will find that you are directing your 
own destiny, and the apparent direction of others is but the incidental 
utilization of your best proclivities and a desirable restraint of your 
worst ones. 

About the first practical thing you will now do is to enter em- 
ployment, and practically the next thing you will do will be uncon- 
sciously to create an impression of what you are good for. That im- 
pression will be best made if you will attend strictly to what you are 
given to do. Do it faithfully, cheerfully, and to your best ability, with- 
out trying to create an impression. We all know there is something 
about a boy that will make him climb a tree faster when the girls are 
looking on than when they are not, and the momentary stimulation of 
ambition is likely to produce a fall. When you start out into the world, 
don't get excited and overdo, nor feel that all eyes are upon you. No 
one is looking very hard, nor caring much. So just take care of the job 
you are on, and consider that it is the only thing eyeing you. 

Those who have had large experience in dealing with engineering 
graduates have found them a pretty good lot. They ought to be. 
Any man who is not has something the matter with him. Whatever 
he has by the grace of nature, with the addition of what he has ac- 
quired by way of fact and instruction, coupled with the training which 
this has given him, ought to make him capable to an acceptable degree, 
even if his experience has not yet so rounded his judgment and tem- 
pered his acts as to render him proficient. 

The employer expects of the young man, fresh from his technical 
education, ability to understand, capacity to think, the possession of 
ordinary facts regarding ordinary things, logical procedure in his acts, 
faithfulness in performance, accuracy in observation, and general in- 
telligence. He does not expect ripe judgment, practical knowledge of 
technical procedure, trained commercial astuteness, nor does he expect 
broad perception of the myriad of things more or less correlated with 
those on which he directly serves. These latter attributes follow from 
experience, and they will surely follow if the former attributes are pos- 
sessed and practiced. 

It is almost impossible to specify those qualities which most quickly 
lead a young man to rise from the lower position he first fills to the 



KERR. 323 

next and the next until he becomes a valued assistant and on the high 
road to leadership, but there is no one thing which so marks a young 
man in any organization as to be wanted. Young graduates enter 
manufacturing establishments, engineering offices, or construction corps, 
— starting evenly in the race. Soon it develops that here and there is a 
man who seems to be wanted by every department. It would be dif- 
ficult for those who want him to define exactly why. The man is as 
yet too young and his characteristics are too unformed to warrant any 
firm determination of his ability, but in some way or other he is wanted, 
and opportunity follows want, whether long felt or shortly realized. 
Cheerfulness in all things is not the least of the factors that enter into 
"being wanted." 

When a man steps up because he is wanted, he must "make good," 
because this early and only half-formed choice is not firm enough to 
stand unless warranted by performance. The burden, therefore, upon 
the man who is chosen is far greater than upon him who is not. 
Through his ability, diligence, perception, and capacity to render his 
potential possibilities in the form of practical service, he will find the 
rising steps always in front of him and will need spend no part of his 
energy to find them. 

As he proceeds further on his way, he may feel that he is doing 
much and doing it well, and this is about the time that self-centered 
youth forgets that after all it is only assisting. Some one else is carry- 
ing the responsibility. Some one else is the leader, and the effort of 
the young man has not yet been called to its greatest obligation, be- 
cause as yet there has not fallen upon it the burden of final responsi- 
bility. 

The day you get your first serious responsibility will be a far more 
important day even than this, because that is the day you will either 
carry the load or not. No one can help you much in preparing for it. 
This is something you must do for yourself. When the time comes 
that you take the burden, no Herculean effort of the moment will make 
you capable of sustaining it. All that you have ever done, are doing 
now, or are going to do up to that day will or will not prepare you 
for it, as the case may be, and the ability to carry responsibility is the 
whole test of leadership. It is not knowledge, skill, brilliancy, nor even 
genius that makes a man a leader, but only the power to carry re- 
sponsibility successfully. 

This requires a series of attributes beginning with proper self- 
confidence and ending with wisdom. Somewhere in the line will be 
found courage, firmness, honesty, and everything that composes high 



20. 



324 THE NEXT STEP. 

character. Each man must, therefore, cultivate that which is within 
himself and make of it the most to this end. 

You are going out into the world at a time in which many things 
differ from their previous condition. One of the most important is that 
within recent years the whole civilized world has turned from the 
struggle for existence to the adaptation of the world's needs to the 
available men to fill them. It is the passing from the ages of insuf- 
ficiency to a period of surplus. 

Orginally in the struggle for existence men fought for food. The 
race multiplied while the material and facilities for its subsistence lag- 
ged. When any tribe or nation succeeded in getting a little more than 
it needed, some other nation or tribe attempted to take some part away 
from it. The effort of the individual and the welfare of the nation 
were practically a struggle for existence. The development, however, 
of civilization, the arts, and the sciences has produced a rich world. 
The land more than supports the people. The industries give employ- 
ment to all who are willing to work, and at a good wage. Broadly 
speaking, poverty is unknown. Individually, it only exists as a pitiful 
extreme of incompetence. The world is affluent. Farmers are pros- 
perous. Science has unearthed mineral wealth. Manufacturers are 
industrious. Enterprise is almost rampant. Everywhere the world is 
calling for men to do things, and it is willing to pay well for capacity. 
It is the age of surplus, in which the farmer and the artisan have bank 
accounts and a few, even many, are rich. Men are not seeking work, 
but work on every hand is seeking men. This condition is so very re- 
cent that it is perhaps not fully realized, but it has come with the 
present generation, and will have an influence and a favorable one on 
all men now beginning their world's work. 

Meanwhile transportation and all that attends it has increased the 
radius of individual action, and therefore of personal opportunity. A 
man can now pass from one grade of employment in a given locality 
to a higher grade in another locality of a land three thousand miles 
broad quite as easily as in the early days he could make the change from 
one neighboring city to another. 

Conditions of life, too, are more fixed, and changes of location, even 
of occupation, involve less of risk, hardship, or of social, physical, or 
mental disturbance than heretofore. All conditions have, therefore, 
grown more favorable for every man, with opportunity increasing in 
geometrical ratio as related to the abilities of different men. The 
premium on marked ability has, therefore, increased, while the reward 
for capacity has become more assured. With this, the standards of 
performance rise as responsibilities grow greater; but to meet this the 



KERR. 325 

facilities enabling the man to make the most of his potential ability at 
an early age, proportionally increase. 

You are, therefore, going out to a well formed world, in which more 
has been done to prepare it for the exercise of your ability than you 
have done in the cultivation of your own talent. I do not mean by this 
that all of the roads have been straightened and the ways paved. The 
world is still humpy and bumpy, and you will find it hard in spots. 
Human nature remains unchanged. You will meet the resistance of 
men and the imperfections of material in this age the same as in any 
other. You must be strong — ^not only strong enough to meet the en- 
countered resistance, but. so much stronger as to meet it easily and 
carry a surplus inertia. 

It is easy to see beyond the point of good vision. There are condi- 
tions under which it is wise to be long headed, but it is also easy to 
overlook many things close to one's eye, which are the essence of what 
should be perceived. There is always a bit of added grandeur to that 
which comes from a distance. The man of high estate from a distant 
country seems more elevated than the one we know near home.. The 
expert from afar seems more expert than the man we know too well. 
It is trite to remark that "Familiarity breeds contempt," but it is too 
often forgotten that "Distance lends enchantment." 

There is something about effectiveness which has to do with grasp- 
ing things which are within reach and using them, and not speculating 
on something that is beyond grasp. The possible benefits which can 
arise through unattainable conditions are of no value. Power is the 
quick adaptation of things at hand to needed ends. Therefore vision 
must not be too long. See the things that are near and see them right. 
See their possibilities and recognize their limitations. Act with refer- 
ence to them, use them, and keep the horizon within practical working 
range. This for action, but as a matter of mental gymnastics, as an 
expanding function, as a matter of mind training, it is well to use the, 
imagination to reach out to any length and to what may lie beyond. 
Then, before action, draw in the lines to the radius of action which 
can be made practically effective. 

Much has been said from time to time about the inferiority of 
knowledge gained piecemeal as against its acquirement in substantial 
masses. The former is liable to be superficial and incorrect; the latter 
profound and competent. 

The scattering of knowledge into little bits covering a wide range 
is catered to by many forms of literature, whether general or specific, 
which finish a subject almost before it is begun. 



326 THE NEXT STEP. 

This tends to the scattering of brain effort, the splitting rather 
than the cementing of intelligence, and to the fickleness of flitting from 
thought to thought and motive to motive in a manner leaving no fixed 
imprint on the mind thus operating. It gives also, little more than the 
appearance of a brilliant film or veneer of learning to those who view 
its results. It encourages suffusion and dilution instead of concentra- 
tion. 

On the other hand, the concentration required to hold to one sub- 
ject, and to acquire one class of knowledge through a considerable 
period of time and carry it over a broad area in which the units of sur- 
face are of somewhat like kind, tends to profound acquirement. In 
quantity, enough is gained to be useful, and in quality it is dense enough 
to have substance. 

All this in a certain way has a bearing upon creative work, and it 
is creative work only that makes the world move on. 

There is no merit in breadth obtained at the expense of depth. 
All mental effort, acquirement, and knowledge need the strength, con- 
stancy, and power which come only by dealing with large masses 
through reasonable periods of time. This to some extent accounts for 
the power manifested in some men who have studied little, but what 
they know is theirs and theirs for use, as against others who have scat- 
tered over so broad a range that they have a little of much, not much of 
anything, and nothing for use. The old maxim of ''Do a little and do 
it well" may be improved into "Do much and do it well." 

Science and engineering cannot be picked up from popular expres- 
sions or the rambling through attractive descriptions of novelties, but 
only from the study of the fundamental principles. Therefore reacj 
books. Study principles, not novelties. Think theory and work prac- 
tice. Turn to real sources, not to the tricks of words and platitudes 
which so often catch one's fancy, and in a superficial way lead to no- 
.tions rather than to logic. 

There is something in the very system of education that constrains 
one to think that everything must be done systematically. It is hard to 
say anything disparaging of so good a thing as system. It surely has 
its place. It has merit. It should be cultivated. But again, it has faults. 
It has the strange anomaly of being both natural and unnatural. It is 
jiatural because all nature grows systematically, evolves systematically, 
and all profound things move more or less systematically. Neverthe- 
less, much is encountered that seems to know no law, and chaos is 
not always best met with system. Many things from warfare to com- 
merce show that system vigorously and profoundly applied will win 
against force used indiscriminately, but, whatever of such truth may be 



KERR. 327 

derived from generalization, one should not los.e sight of the plain con- 
crete fact that a refinement of system does not always best fit practical 
conditions as they exist. Such conditions often demand going straight 
at the obvious mark regardless of system. 

It may be observed that system is cultivating, and it is, there- 
fore, well to cultivate system, — but with it cultivate the capacity to 
break through it temporarily, effectively, and for good cause. 

To succeed, you must above all things be what the world calls 
practical. The practical man is the one who understands the things 
about him. 

Foresight is the carrying beyond present view the knowledge of 
things within view. It is the practical man who displays foresight 
and thus is called wise, or prudent, because through the knowledge of 
things about him he can extend his judgment to those beyond. 

Knowledge in the form of learning is inferior to knowledge in 
the form of discernment, because it is less effective. The former 
may be admired, but the latter is followed. 

The boy who "wants to know" is the right kind. Get next to 
everything next to you. You can't successfully deal with large 
things far removed unless you understand the small ones near by. 

The practical man thinks quantitatively and qualitatively, while 
the impractical man thinks qualitatively only. 

The failure to recognize quantitative analysis in mental action is 
responsible for many misconceptions, poor judgments, and worse acts. 

Too many men allow their minds to form judgments on a quali- 
tative basis only, so neglecting the quantitative as to reach wholly 
wrong conclusions. The question of many things is not whether, but 
how much. To realize that one thing is better than another is of 
little importance unless one determines how much better it is. The 
value of the fact that one cost is greater than another is measured 
wholly by how much it is greater. Perspective is a relation between 
size and apparent size. The effective man has an ever present sense of 
proportion. The dreamer does not so relate things to each other as to 
make their ratios real. The habit of quantitative analysis and the 
attaching of quantitative values is of even more importance than a 
general idea of qualitative relationship. 

Express yourselves. There must be an impulse to expression. 
Follow it without fear. Thinking twice may be overdone. Think 
right once to act. The impulse to act on every point of knowledge 
is inspiring — even if conditions restrain action. It is the desire to act 
that causes activity, and nothing but action can produce results. 



328 THE NEXT STEP. 

As a last short word, I ask you to be individual. Base your in- 
dividuality on correct knowledge of fundamental principles. Make 
them your own and not merely things that were told to you or what 
you may have read about in books. Make them your own so firmly 
that you understand them with the fullness of your own nature. I 
mean not only the natural laws of physics, chemistry, and economics, 
but the laws of right and wrong, the principles of equity and inequity, 
the comprehension of the essence of things as distinct from the inci- 
dents; a realization of commercialism and its ever constant relation 
to the effective application of all laws; a clear perception of facts, 
and ability to use the five senses as well as the one brain. 

Never mind conventionalities except so far as they are good when 
measured in terms of higher laws than set forms. At least one-hall 
of all conventional methods in the performance of the technical arts 
consists of the persistence of inferior methods utilized only because 
retained through precedent. 

Above all, be courageous, consistent, considerate, and cheerful, 
in order that your talents and the best attributes of your nature may 
have fair play in a world that wants your service so long as you render 
it in the right spirit. 



COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS. 
By 

Dr. Julian Kennedy. 

This address was delivered on June 3, 1909, to the graduating 
class of Stevens Institute of Technology, and was repeated a week 
later to the graduating class of the Pennsylvania State College. Dr. 
Kennedy is one of the most distinguished of America's numerous me- 
chanical engineers, his specialty being connected with the manufacture 
of steel. Everywhere, both at home and abroad, blast furnaces, steel 
works, gas producer plants, rolling mills, slab mills, plate mills, tube 
mills, power plants, railway bridges, sugar mills, hydraulic dredges, 
and tall buildings bear evidence of his rare constructive skill. 

In consequence of his wide experience, extending over a period of 
thirty-six years, his advice to young men about to start in the practice 
of engineering ought to prove of immense value. Anyone following 
it is certain to obtain great benefit, and it may prove the means of his 
attaining professional success. 

Dr. Kennedy's professional record is as follows : 

He was born at Poland, Mahoming County, N. Y., March 15, 1852, 
and was educated at the Poland Union Seminary, then at Sheffield Scien- 
tific School of Yale, where he took the degree of Ph. B. in 1875 and that 
of A. M. in 1900. Before going to Yale he had been draftsman, under 
his father, in the construction of the Struthers Iron Company, where 
he was employed three years. 

From 1876 to 1885 he was Superintendent of Blast Furnaces at the 
Briar Hill Company's works, the Struthers Iron Company's works, the 
Morse Bridge Works, the Edgar Thompson Steel Works, and the Lucy 
Furnaces. From 1885 to 1888 he was General Superintendent for Car- 
negie, Phipps, & Company at Homestead; then for a year or two he was 
Chief Engineer of the Latrobe Steel Works. Since 1890 he has been 
a general consulting and contracting engineer with headquarters at 
Pittsburg, Pa. He has been connected in some manner or another with 
nearly every important steel plant in the United States and Europe ; and 
he has patented many improvements and devices for manufacturing- 
iron and steel. 

He is a member of several of the leading technical societies of Am- 
erica and England. 

Editors. 

329 



COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS. 

By 

Dr. Julian Kennedy. 



Assuming that the majority of you will follow engineering pursuits, 
it may not be amiss to mention some things which you will have to deal 
with in your future work. It is entirely unnecessary for me to remind 
you that most of you are not at the present time engineers. Those 
of you who have properly utilized your opportunities have received a 
splendid mental training, together with some knowledge of engineering 
which equips you to go on and acquire the vast amount of practical 
knowledge necessary to the engineer. You will soon find that many 
kinds of knowledge which you have perhaps considered useless, are 
important and essential in your professional work. It is a mistake 
made by most students, and I have no doubt many of you have made 
it, to think that the Faculty of the school has introduced too many 
general studies into the course instead of giving all, or nearly all, of 
the time to purely technical studies and practical work closely related 
to engineering. To those of you who have had this feeling, I would 
only say that your views will change as you go on and in ten years 
from now you will think more of the judgment of the Faculty in these 
matters than you do at present. There is no doubt that your instructors 
could map out a course which would turn out graduates who would 
be able to start in practical work with much more ease and readiness 
than you can, in fact any boy who Had spent the four years you have 
spent here, in the field or drawing room learning practical engineer- 
ing, would, other things being equal, be able to do routine work in 
an engineering office much better than you could do it, but, on the other 
hand, in a very few years you should be far ahead of him. In other 
words, ''your instructors have been wise to give you a broad and liberal 
training, and to forego teaching you some of those things which would 
come nearest to making engineers of you at the time you finish your 
course in order to give you more of the broad and fundamental princi- 
ples, the mastery of which will enable you in a reasonable time to 
become much abler and more valuable engineers than if your training 
here had aimed to teach you the maximum amount of that kind of 
technical information which is supposed to be most immediately useful 

331 



332 COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS. 

to the young graduate. It is much better for you to have^ broad, liberal 
education and a little engineering knowledge when yon leave here 
than to have a much greater amount of practical and technical knowl- 
edge without a liberal education. In your future work you will learn 
that it is much easier to find among technical graduates good designers 
of machinery or fine mathematicians than it is to find those who can 
write a satisfactory contract or even a good business letter. 

At some stage of your career some of you at least will be called 
upon to purchase large amounts of machinery and materials, when you 
will find that the ability to write a contract from which not one word 
can be omitted and of which not one sentence can be construed in more 
than one way, will be of more value to you than even a knowledge of 
the method of least squares, which some of you may perchance have 
forgotten by that time. Not only will your opinion of the judgment 
of the Faculty change, but your general impressions of them will also 
be radically revised. In my student days there was a song, the refrain 
of. which was, "There'll be no Faculty there," but after graduating 
you will begin to appreciate the Faculty and year by year this appre- 
ciation will grow stronger until you will finally arrive at a somewhav 
adequate idea of what you owe to them and to realize that not to 
its buildings, not to its endowment, not to its alumni does your insti- 
tute owe its greatness, but more than to all of these combined to 
that noble, earnest, unselfish, self-sacrificing band of men, its Faculty, 
and as the years roll round you will appreciate how many of them 
have given up the chance of much greater material reward in other 
lines of work in order to do the more important work of fitting you 
to be an honor to your school and a benefit to the world, and at the end 
of a quarter of a century those of you who are living will be amazed 
at the interest taken in you one and all by the Faculty, who, like ? 
mother, never forget their boys and grieve over their misfortunes and 
glory in their success. 

Speaking of mothers brings to mind mothers-in-law. Like college 
faculties, they are often the subjects of jokes, but if you will observe 
carefully and accept the verdict of those who have had experience, you 
will learn that one of the truest and best friends a man has in this 
world is apt to be his mother-in-law. In this connection I may say 
that one of the things most essential to his success, which a young en- 
gineer should do not too late in his career, is to acquire a mother-in- 
law. 

I have spoken of the engineers purchasing materials and making 
contracts, which leads to the thought that a large part of engineer- 
ing is commercial, and that commercial considerations must be given 



KENNEDY, 333 

weight in all engineering work. We are sometimes inclined to forego 
these and strive to produce something ideal, without reference to the 
.question of whether it will be profitable or not. The man who puts in 
an elaborately designed machine to displace two laborers in a plant 
and finds that instead of them he has one skilled man operating the 
machine and two high-priced machinists keeping it in repair, may be 
a genius and a skilled mechanician, but he is not accomplishing what is 
generally wanted. You will be surprised when you get into actual 
work to find how often commercial conditions are ignored by engineers, 
and not by engineers only. It may be your experience at some time to 
work hard for weeks at the urgent demand of a board of directors to 
try to reduce the cost of labor in a plant by five or ten cents per ton of 
product, and you may spend many thousand dollars to accomplish this, 
while at the same time the output of the works is being sold year in 
and year out at a dollar or two a ton below the price it ought to bring. 
You will find also in many cases that costly machines are installed to 
effect savings which are offset many times over by the interest on the 
cost of the machinery and its maintenance. You will also find installed 
elaborate and intricate machinery to effect the highest ultimate saving, 
which because of the complication becomes unreliable and subject to 
breakage, and you will be surprised to find in how many cases an 
hour's stoppage of a machine which forms part of a large and highly 
organized plant will cause a loss of more money than would be saved 
in a year by this highly efficient machine as compared with a less effi- 
cient but thoroughly reliable one. The larger and more complicated 
a plant is and the more highly organized the sequence of operations 
carried on in it, the more important it is that all machinery in it should 
first of all be as reliable as it can be made. It should, therefore, be your 
aim to acquire as rapidly as possible, in addition to your mechanical 
ability, good commercial judgment and a wide experience, enabling you 
to judge which of several different paths is apt to lead to commercial 
success. In purchasing materials the engineer often has to act as the 
agent of his clients as well as a referee between them and the seller. 
It is, of course, his duty to get materials as cheaply as possible, but 
he should never forget that he. ought to be absolutely fair to both par- 
ties, and the engineer who maintains this attitude will in the long run 
best serve the interests of his clients as well as his own. In doing 
business he should remember that nine-tenths of the litigation in this 
world is caused by vague or incomplete understandings between buyer 
and seller, and he should exercise great care to see that everything con- 
nected with the specifications and contract is so fully and clearlv ex- 
pressed that there can be no misunderstanding regarding them, and he 



334 COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS. 

will find that to do this is by no means an easy or simple undertaking. 

In starting out as engineers, you should all bear in mind that you 
are largely dependent upon others. The field of engineering is so 
vast that no one can cover a very large part of it, and no one can 
accomplish much unless he has the faculty of availing himself of the 
work and knowledge of others. The man who makes one of the great- 
est failures in the mechanical world is he who spends his life inventing 
complicated machines, only to find that others had invented them 
years before. In many lines of work it is just as important to know 
what has already been done as it is to possess great ability to originate 
new designs, and as between the man who is an expert special designer 
in any department of engineering and the one who has the faculty of 
utilizing the work of many other m^en in many departments, the latter 
will be the more valuable man, will be more sought after, and will rise 
higher in his profession. In other words, it is not so much what a 
man can do himself as what he can get others to do that makes him 
valuable in carrying on large undertakings. 

In your work as engineers you will be called upon to make reports 
on properties, processes, etc. You will, of course, in such cases be 
sure that you understand the subject, after which it will be wise foi 
you to write your report so as to say in it all you desire to say ana 
write it on the theory that anyone may read it. You may be asked 
sometimes to vary the wording of your report on the ground that 
it is not to be published, but only shown to A or B. In such cases you 
will be wise to make no changes which you would not want read and 
criticised by anyone, and to bear in mind also that the funds of widows 
and orphans may be invested in enterprises on the strength of your 
report. Your written report, should, of course, be complete in itself, 
and should not need to be supplemented by oral explanations, and it 
should be so concise and clear that there is no possibility of anyone 
warping or distorting the meaning of it. While most business men 
want straight, honest reports, there is quite a respectable (as to num- 
bers) minority who will try to have you warp the truth just a little, and 
who are very plausible and specious in the way they go abo7:.t it. in work of 
this kind you will find that commercial knowledge and good judgment play 
a very large part, and you will possibly learn that expert accountants, 
like many other kinds of expert specialists, are very narrow in their 
views and more or less feeble in , grasping broad principles. To be 
successful in this line of work it is necessary that you should acquire 
a great deal of general information in connection with accounts, con- 
struction of plants, and their operation. You will also find many things 
in works which cannot be seen, and for your information in regard to 



'' : ' KENNEDY. 335 

them you will be dependent upon other people, and your success in 
getting accurate information will depend largely upon your judgment 
of men, your tact and ability to elicit correct information from them. 
Owing to the large number of things which have to be examined some- 
times in a very short space of time, it will be necessary for you to 
acquire a faculty of seeing things quickly and accurately, as well as of 
judging of their conditions and their methods of operation. This is a 
faculty which varies greatly in different men, but one which can be 
cultivated to a marvelous extent. 

You have doubtless seen men who could walk through a factory 
and come out with a wonderful amount of information regarding the 
workings of a large number of intricate machines, whereas another man 
may have passed through at the same time and not seen a hundredth 
part as much of the actual inwardness of the mechanism. In making 
reports in regard to works or plants, you should be as concise and 
clear in your descriptions as possible, bearing in mind that bankers 
and financial men generally are apt to place upon a report a value in 
inverse proportion to its length. I remember seeing a report on a large 
plant containing some miles of railroad trestle, which gave in exact 
detail the size of every sill, every post, cap, corbel, and stringer in the 
entire works, the list occupying a good many pages of legal cap; 
and the entire trestle was rotten to an extent that it was not even 
fit for firewood, and the only thing that was really necessary to know 
about it was the expense of pulling it down and hauling it away. The 
man who made this report was probably a very painstaking engineer, 
but lacked something in his makeup. 

You will in your future work, doubtless, be called on to testify 
as experts in the courts in cases involving mechanical considerations 
and patents. There has been a good deal of criticism of the system, 
of having experts on each side of a case, and many have recommended 
that the court should engage its own expert, but all things consid- 
ered, I have no doubt that a fuller, broader, and fairer knowledge is 
gained by the court if it listens to two experts each putting forward 
the strong arguments for his own side of the case, than if only one 
expert is heard, as he is liable not to see all sides of the question, and 
may, with the best intentions in the world, give a very incomplete and 
erroneous opinion on the technical points of the case. This is less likely 
to happen where each expert sets forth his own side of the matter, 
and is cross-examined by the other side. Should you have occasion 
to act as an expert in this line you should first of all be sure that 
you have a thorough knowledge of the subject; in other words, that 
you are a real expert in it. Next you should endeavor to be entirelv 



326 COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS. 

fair in your testimony. It is not expected that you should volunteer 
aid or assistance to the other side, but you should answer all ques- 
tions fully and fairly, and, above all, you should be absolutely honest 
in regard to your opinions. As a general rule, it is wise not to enter 
a case unless a preliminary study of it convinces you that you can be 
of service to your client, and at the same time adhere strictly to your 
honest opinions throughout. You will find it essential in this kind of 
work to be patient, to have absolute control of your temper, and to 
meet the most insulting and irritating cross-examination with un- 
ruffled composure and with retorts courteous. Where the facts are 
against your side, you should not try to dodge the issue, but remember 
that frank admissions of those things which plainly favor the opposi- 
tion in most cases help your side more than they hurt it. Remember 
always that although it may be impossible to prove that a statement 
of an opinion is not truthful, yet an experienced judge in reading the 
testimony will almost infallibly detect any tendency to untruthful- 
ness or unfairness in a witness. 

In your engineering work you will possibly have to direct large 
bodies of men, and here you will need judgment, tact, and knowl- 
edge of human nature, together with firmness and decision and a spirit 
of fairness. In addition to handling men successfully, you should make 
it a rule to learn from them, and you will be surprised at the great 
amount of information you can gather in this way, especially among 
mechanics. Twenty or thirty years ago there was, among the so-called 
practical mechanical men of this country, a good deal of contempt for 
the technical graduate. This feeling has to a large extent ceased to 
exist, but on the other hand I fear there is a tendency on the part of 
the technically trained men at the present time greatly to underestimate 
the value of the knowledge of the first-class mechanic acquired by long 
practical experience. Many engineers would rise much higher in their 
profession if they had the faculty of absorbing useful knowledge from 
the working mechanics, many of whom have wonderful ability and 
can give most valuable information. In a still wider sense engineers 
can get a great deal of information from their brother engineers, and 
team work is just as essential in carrying on engineering work as it 
is in winning a game of football. As you can obtain a large amount 
of aid from other engineers, so it should be your duty and your pleasure 
to impart information to your engineering brethren, especially to the 
younger members of the guild. Make friends among men of high 
standing and greater experience than your own and hold them. Always 
see a desirable position ahead of you, and strive to be prepared for it 
mentally and physically. Remember that often a strong constitution 



KENNEDY. 337 

and vigorous brain will cause you to win where others have failed. Bear 
in mind that booze and business do not mix, and that the demand for 
sober, steady men grows stronger. In men as in machinery what is 
most wanted is reliability. In all things so shape your actions that if 
failure comes to you, you shall have done better than to achieve success 
by deserving it, and so that you can inscribe upon the dismantled mill 
or the abandoned mine "all is lost save honor." 

Gentlemen of the Graduating Class, I congratulate you upon the 
future which looms up before you. The great advances in science, 
mechanics, and all of the forms of material and mental development 
achieved during the last fifty years will be dwarfed by those of the 
next half century. Your native land possesses most marvelous resources 
and boundless possibilities. Its great forests which should be conserved 
and increased, its vast water powers to be developed, its great stores 
of fuel to be economically utilized, and other natural resources too 
numerous to mention, all of which should be used in the most efficient 
manner, call for earnest, faithful, and intelligent engineering work. 

A part of this work it will be your good fortune to do, and I have 
no doubt you will do it vigorously and faithfully, and will receive the 
reward which follows work well done. You will find discouragements, 
but these come to others as well as to engineers. The financial rewards 
of your work may seem small as compared with those common in other 
professions, but there are other rewards besides these. The man who 
builds a successful machine enjoys a pleasure which the owner of it 
does not, and the engineer who sees scattered over the country great 
plants which he has designed, doing their work well, obtains a great 
reward even if the financial return to him is small compared with that 
received by the stockholders. 

In addition to the work which you will find to do in the line of 
engineering, it is to be hoped that your influence will be widely felt 
m other directions. There are many problems in connection with the 
municipal, state, and national government that will require solving 
in the years to come, and no class of men should be more able to cast 
their influence in the right direction in the solution of these than the 
engineers. When you consider that the cost of building and main- 
taining one modern battleship is greater than the amount necessary to 
endow and operate Harvard University, Yale University, and Stevens 
Institute, or again that the first cost of one of these vessels would build 
five thousand model workmen's homes costing $3,000 each, and when 
we see further the insane rivalry between such great po-^rs as England 
and Germany to see who shall have the most of these engines of de- 
struction, while at the same time both countries are rapidly drifting 



338 COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS. 

toward bankruptcy, it seems as though the time were ripe for educated 
men and everyone else to use their influence on every pfjssible occasion 
against this species of folly. 

When we further notice the so-called alleged statesmen who repre- 
sent the various portions of our country at Washington quibbling over 
trifles and striving with all their might to get all the plunder out of the 
public crib for their own ditstrxts, and failing to take any action on the 
great questions which vvould be of untold benefit to their country, it 
impresses us with the fact that there are needed in this country a great 
many clear-headed, courageous men who can think straight and are 
not afraid to express their opinions. There are, and will be, many im- 
portant questions arising, and it should be your duty and your pleasure 
to use your influence at all times in favor of any policy that will make 
for the good of your country and your fellow man. 

I trust you will not be content to be simply skilled mechanical spe- 
cialists of the type that looks with contempt upon Shakespeare and 
Milton because they knew nothing of alternating current generators 
or Pelton water wheels, but that you will strive to acquire a broad and 
liberal culture, kindly sympathy, and sound judgment; that your in- 
fluence will be steadily exerted in behalf of all things that are of good 
report in social, civic, and national life, and that, wheresoever you may 
be, at all times and in all places your Alma Mater may be proud of you. 
and that your country and the world may be better for your having 
lived in it. 

To you, Gentlemen of the Graduating Class, who, by successfully 
completing the thorough and strenuous course demanded of you by this 
Institute, have demonstrated that you have the ability and industry to 
acquit yourselves with credit in any work your hand may find to do, 
my parting greeting is, 

"Well done and go forward." 



STUDY MEN. ' , ■ 

By 
John F. Hayford, C. E. 

This address, which treats of a most important subject not onlv 
for young engineers but also for all young men, was given in 1907 to 
the graduating class of the Thomas S. Clarkson Memorial School of 
Technology. Mr. Hayford then held the importanc official position of In- 
spector of Geodetic Work and Chief of Computing Division in the Coast 
and Geodetic Survey Department at Washington, D. C. 

The introductory portion of this address treats of the magnitude 
and importance of the engineering profession, a subject that cannot 
well receive too much attention in the curricula of technical schools, 
but which unfortunately as a rule, is generally ignored. 

The advice to study men is the soundest of the sound. Doing 
<io will enable you not only to benefit by the labor of others but also so 
^o mould your own character as to incorporate in it the good traits oi 
others and reject the objectionable ones. There is an important de- 
duction to be made from Mr. Hayford's discourse — something in the 
n?ture of a corollary — viz. ''Study the lives of eminent successful 
engineers" in order to learn how and why they succeeded; and 
before reading any technical treatise learn all you can concerning the 
life history of its author. This, to say the least, will make the study of 
the book more interesting, and probably also more profitable. 

Mr. Hayford was born at Rouses Point, N. Y., May 19, 1868. He 
graduated in the Civil Engineering Department at Cornell University 
in June, 1889, and was immediately appointed computer in the Coast 
and Geodetic Survey as a result of a civil service examination. In 1890 
and 1891 he served as computer in the Tidal Division, in the office of 
Standard Weights and Measures, and on a base measuring party at 
Holton, Indiana. In 1892 and 1893 he was Assistant Astronomer to 
the International Boundary Commission (United States and Mexico") in 
charge of the field operations of astronomic determinations (latitude 
and azimuth on the whole line), of certain triangulation, and of ranging 
out 230 miles of the line. 

In 1894 and 1895 he was at first Aid and later Assistant on the 
Coast and Geodetic Survey, doing principal field work and latitude and 
longitude observations in connection with the Alaska Boundary Survey. 

33^ 



340 STUDY MEN. 

From 1895 to 1898 he was Instructor in Civil Engineering, at Cor- 
nell University. 

From 1898 to 1909 he was again on the Coast and Geodetic Survey, 
at first as expert computer and geodesist, and later in the position of 
Chief of the Computing Division and Inspector of Geodetic Work. In 
this position he had charge, under the Superintendent's direction, of 
the operations of triangulation, leveling, astronomic determinations, and 
gravity determinations, from the forming of the plans for field work 
to the publication of the results, having supervision over the field as well 
as the ofiice operations. 

In 1909 he was appointed Director by the College of Engineering 
at the Northwestern University, which position he now holds. 

He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement 
of Science, and a member of the Western Society of Engineers, the 
American Society of Civil Engineers, and the National Academy of 
Science. 

He is the author of numerous important papers, mainly on astro- 
nomical and geodetic subjects, and of two standard books, viz., ''Geo- 
detic Astronomy" and "The Adjustment of Observations by the Method 
of Least Squares." 

Editors. 



STUDY MEN. 

By 

John F. Hayford, C. E. 

We are met to celebrate the graduation of a group of young men 
from this institution, the Clarkson Memorial. 

I congratulate you, graduates, on your entrance upon your life 
work in the noble profession of engineering. It is a profession in which 
there are great opportunities for service. 

Your predecessors who have done their part as engineers in turn- 
ing the forces of nature to the use of man have changed this world 
from one in which the winner was the man with the brute strength 
and physical bravery which gave him the power to win in a hand to 
hand battle. It was a world in which all, even the fighters who secured 
the spoils and the kings who ruled the fighters, lived in comparative 
discomfort. It was a world in which the higher thoughts, aspirations, 
and the impulse to render unselfish service which are the essence of 
civilization, came to but very few. The mass of humanity were too 
heavily loaded with hard labor, with real oppression from the classes 
above them, and with the effects of ignorance and superstition, to have 
a part in the crude civilization which existed. It was a world in which 
men knew only their nearest neighbors, in which nations perpetually 
fought against each other, in which each people was densely ignorant 
of every other and correspondingly suspicious. 

By turning the forces of nature to the use of man, your predeces- 
sors as engineers have changed this into a world in which the winner 
is the man who thinks clearly, controls himself, and may be depended 
upon, — the man who serves rather than the man who fights. It is 
now a world in which millions live in greater comfort and security than 
did even the kings of the ages before the engineer. It is now a world 
in which the average man works such short hours and under such 
comfortable conditions that he has abundant opportunities within his 
reach to share in the real benefits of civilization, to develop himself to 
his full capacity. 

Perhaps you think I have exaggerated in crediting the engineer 
with all these changes. In terse statements there is apt to be some 
exaggeration. But, the more carefully you study this matter the more 

341 



342 STUDY MEN. 

evidence you will find of the truth of these statements and the more 
enthusiastic you will become over your profession. 

Think for a moment how the steam engine and other machines 
are the basis of your comfort. Think of the large part they have 
played in furnishing you the light and heat you have in your houses, 
the clothes you wear, the food you eat. 

The locomotive, the marine engine, the printing press, and the 
telegraph, have made all the peoples of the world acquainted and 
changed them from enemies into friends. The people of the United 
States and the Japanese, living on opposite sides of the world, are 
better acquainted and more friendly today than were the French and the 
Prussians one hundred years ago, living as close neighbors. 

The engineer by producing powerful weapons and the means of 
concentrating troops quickly has made war so costly and so deadly 
that we must credit him with being a most efficient peacemaker. 

In improving personal morals, as well as national morals, and 
thereby advancing civilization, the work of the engineer is extremely 
powerful. He builds a smooth steel road and a one hundred ton loco- 
motive which draws a massive train at a mile a minute. Then it is 
found that the safety, — the lives, — of the hundreds of passengers on 
the train depends upon the quick and certain action of the man in the 
cab of the locomotive. He must not only see the faint danger signal 
within a few seconds, every time it appears before him, but also he must 
not fail to act promptly and with good judgment, or he will pay the for- 
feit with his own life and possibly with the lives of many others. This 
and other situations, created by the engineer, in which certainty and 
quickness of action of the nerves and brain are absolutely necessary, be- 
cause great responsibility is concentrated on one man, have been most 
powerful influences in changing this from an irresponsible, drunken 
world into a responsible, temperate one. You never heard of a rail- 
road company claiming that it needed to provide a canteen to keep its 
employees sober. 

I congratulate you on joining a group of men who are doing great 
service for the world, — a service much greater than the world appre- 
ciates it to be, — a service much greater than the engineers themselves 
realize. One of the prominent characteristics of the average engineer 
is that he is so wrapped up in his work as to see only its immediate 
results and to fail to see its much greater indirect effects. He fails to 
realize fully that he is working through men and for men, — that the 
most important effect of his work is its influence on the onward and 
upward progress of man. 



HAY FORD. 343 

It is because this is my opinion of the engineer and his work that 
I have all that I can possibly do to live up to the title C. E. 

I come to urge you to study men. Why? Because much of your 
learning is done through other men, because you will do your work 
through men, and because men are so difficult to understand that care- 
ful study is required. Men are the most important objects of interest 
that will come within your sphere of knowledge. I urge you, gradu- 
ates, to study men because I am safe in saying that there are some 
among you who will fail to be useful in the world simply because you 
will fail to understand men until it is too late. 

Please note that you are urged to study men for perfectly unmoral 
reasons. You are not urged to study men to learn how to improve 
their morals, not for any effect it may have upon your own morals. You 
are urged to study men in order to make yourself more efficient as an 
engineer, — the purpose for which you study steel or concrete. 

I have said that you should study men because much of your learn- 
ing is done through men. Have you ever considered how large a pro- 
portion of the stock of knowledge and wisdom you have gathered has 
come to you through other men's brains ? 

You, graduates, have been under the continuous influence of the 
teachers in school and college for 16 to 20 years, — for more than 
three-fourths of your life. You have acquired through their efforts. 
They have guided, encouraged, and inspired you. To a large extent 
your knowledge has been selected by them and your views colored by 
them. You have learned from and through your teachers rather than 
from direct contact with facts. 

During this school and college period you have learned much from 
books rather than from teachers. But a book is simply the ideas of a 
man made visible and explained in the way which seems best to him. 
You seldom think of the man behind the book. But when you read 
and study a book you are learning through the brain of that man. 
Your ideas are influenced, guided, colored by him. To get the full 
value of the book you should know the man. 

If you prove to be a successful engineer, you will pass through 
three periods with reference to the acquisition of knowledge and wis- 
dom. First, the school and college period when you acquired through 
books and teachers. Second, the period comprising the first ten or 
more years after you leave college, the period during which you will 
occupy subordinate positions and be in close contact with material 
facts. By that close contact with facts you will gain experience which 
will remedy, to a considerable extent, the inevitable defects of any edu- 
cation furnished by books and teachers alone. 



344 STUDY MEN. 

Just as rapidly and as certainly as you gain real success by show- 
ing ability to make yourself useful in the world, and by using your abil- 
ity, you will find your responsibilities increased, the demands upon you 
increased, and will find that you cannot, if you are to accomplish most, 
remain in direct contact with all the facts of your daily work. You 
will enter the third period" with respect to the acquisition of knowl- 
edge and wisdom. You will find yourself in a position where you 
must acquire knowledge through your subordinates who are themselves 
in more direct contact with the facts. The chief engineer of a rail- 
road, the chief engineer of a great government engineering bureau 
like the Reclamation Service, the head of a great technical school, 
necessarily sees the facts of the work for which he is responsible mainly 
through the eyes and brains of his subordinates. In the third, or 
executive, period then, as in the first, or school period, the successful 
engineer acquires knowledge and wisdom by utilizing the brains of 
other men. 

When you are in school and college yoii are, as a rule, learning 
things which were well known long before your time, you are acquir- 
ing knowledge which is well organized by the successive efiForts of many 
men, teachers, and authors. Because it is well organized knowledge, 
already worked over by many men, this concentrated experience comes 
to you from the past with comparatively little coloring due specifically 
to the last author and the last teacher in the series through which it 
passed to you. But it does come to you with high coloring and in a 
distorted form, because the long series of authors and teachers have, 
as a rule, belonged to one profession, — teaching — because they have all 
been thinkers, rather than doers. It is within your power, to a great 
extent, to remove the inevitable false coloring, and to round out the 
inevitably distorted form by heeding your own experience to be gained 
in the second period already referred to, — the period during which 
you are to be in engineering in subordinate positions in close contact 
with facts. 

But as you gradually, by being successful, pass into the third period 
in which you again depend upon utilizing the brains of others, you 
will find that the facts you must deal with have not been known long, 
that they are not well organized, that they come to you through one 
man or through a short series of men only, and that as a rule the re- 
lations between the facts are but dimly perceived by the men from 
whom you get them. Under these conditions the facts and principles 
come to you highly colored and greatly distorted and but dimly out- 
lined because of the peculiarities of the man, or the few men, through 
whom you get them. It becomes, therefore, of prime importance to 



HAYFORD, 345 

you to understand that man, or those men. To be entirely successful 
you must study men. 

I say, advisedly, that the facts with which you must deal in the 
third period are of this character. The well known and well organized 
facts and principles will be dealt with by your subordinates without 
coming to you for attention. 

Thave urged that you study men because you learn through men. 
When you have learned and come in turn to do, you will find that your 
work must be done through other men, as a rule. 

An engineer does very little directly without the intervention of 
other men between him and his accomplishment, even when he is in 
minor, subordinate positions. Even the levelman is dependent on his 
rodman and recorder. The inspector on construction may see with 
his own eyes, but he produces changes only by operating through a 
foreman or perhaps a chain of several men, including the engineer to 
whom he reports, the contractor, the contractor's foreman, and finally 
the workmen. The draftsman may seem to be directly in contact with 
his work but he really accomplishes something only as he succeeds by 
means of drawings in guiding the skilled workmen whom perhaps he 
never sees. In each of even these simple cases the effectiveness of the 
engineer is conditioned in part on his accurate understanding of the 
thoughts and feelings of the men through whom he works. 

As an engineer rises higher in the organization with which he 
works, his field of influence becomes larger, but the line of men through 
whom he works to produce material results also lengthens He works 
to an increasing degree through other men and it is of increasing im- 
portance that he understands other men. Or, if he fails to know men 
he is apt to fail to rise. 

An engineer works through other men not connected with him in 
any organization by convincing them of the correctness of his view, 
and of the advisability of doing certain things. He produces results in 
these cases by convincing. It may seem at first sight that in this re- 
spect a man works in a different way through other men according to 
.whether they are his subordinates in a close organization or are out- 
side the organization. But experience will show you that there is no 
real difference. You can be effective in producing results through 
your subordinates in an organization only by convincing them that you 
are right, though it may not be necessary that they understand why 
your decisions are right. If you do not convince, your subordinates 
will accomplish whatever is within their native ability to accomplish 
unguided, but no part of that accomplishment will be due to yon. 



346 STUDY MEN. 

If you are to succeed, — to be valuable in the world — to know is 
not enough, you must make others to know. Your power of passing 
knowledge from your own into another man's mind depends largely 
upon your understanding of that man. Hence you must study him. 
If you understand him and have a thorough mastery of the topic in 
hand, then your success in convincing him still depends largely on your 
skill in using language, in making words effective carriers of ideas. 
Language is one of the tools of an engineer, — a tool which he has fre- 
quently neglected because he has as frequently failed to realize that 
men are also his tools. 

As soon as you are well started in studying men you will find 
yourself studying the need and purpose of organization. For as soon 
as you fully realize what great differences there are in their principal 
characteristics, and even how widely the capabilities of a given man 
may vary at different stages of his life, you will realize why and how 
it is that a group of men working together as an organization may ac- 
complish much more than the same men could if they worked inde- 
pendently, as individuals. 

A very common conception of organization is that it is an arbitrary 
arrangement by which orders are transmitted by various steps, 
through different groups of officials, from the man at the head of the 
organization to the many men who form the rank and file and do the 
actual work. Many graduates have shown that they believe that the 
way for a man in a high position to get a thing done is to order it 
done. Poor and inefficient administrators may do it that way. The 
successful administrators are men who act on the principle that their 
business is to administer unto those below them in the organization in 
three ways. First, by putting them into such places and under such 
conditions that they can do their best ; second, by giving them orders 
necessary to show what is expected of them; and, third, by enlisting 
their wills as well as their bodies and minds in the work of the organi- 
zation so that they will do their best. The first and third of these, 
the average graduate has never seriously thought of. He sees in the 
administrative officer the man who orders. The successful adminis- 
trator finds his time so thoroughly filled with the first and third kinds 
of administration, with putting each man in the place and under the 
conditions most favorable to his effectiveness, and with enlisting in the 
service the will of the man, that orders fill but a small part of his 
horizon. 

The men near the top in an organization normally do the most 
difficult work. Normally they are the men who work most intensely 
and for the longest hours. In the great organization with which I am 



HAY FORD. 347 

connected, the civil service of the United States, this is so commonly 
recognized that it calls forth no comment to see the rank and file leave 
at four-thirty and come at exactly nine, while others who are in re- 
sponsible control of the organization work early, late, and strenuously. 

I have urged you to study men, and especially to study men from 
a certain point of view, — the point of view of one who wishes to attain 
success as an engineer. You may properly ask how it is proposed to 
study this subject. Study it as you should study any other engineering 
topic. Use the best books you can find, study current practice as shown, 
in current literature, study the. facts and principles directly whenever 
you can. 

You will find at the outset that no one existing book will serve as 
a text-book. There certainly are fundamental principles, capable of 
being put into words, which are daily being applied by successful ad- 
ministrators. But these administrators do not put them into words 
themselves. They are too busy. Some of them will tell you that they 
act by intuition. If the principles are put into words it will be done 
by some one who makes that his chief aim for the time being, some 
one who will study carefully the words (spoken and written) and the 
acts of successful administrators, and perhaps failures in that line also. 
That is the way the excellent text-books on various courses in engi- 
neering have been built up, and the transition made from the time, only 
two generations ago, when Mahan's Civil Engineering was the single 
text-book, to the present state of affairs when we have complete and 
well written text-books in each of many lines of engineering, as, for 
example. Masonry Structures, Bridges, Hydraulics, Sanitary Engineer- 
ing, and so on. It was the teacher rather than the successful engineer 
who put into clear, definite, teachable form the principles used by en- 
gineers. So you must not expect the man who is successful in dealing 
with men, the successful administrator, to tell you how he does it. You 
must directly, or through others, watch his actions and their effects, 
listen to his spoken words, and read his writings on all sorts of topics. 

To sum up: You have in your four-year course been studying 
material things, the facts of nature and the laws of nature. You have 
been acquiring that engineering knowledge, knowledge of the forces 
of nature and the strength and properties of materials, which is abso- 
lutely essential to your success as an engineer. You have studied man 
comparatively little. You have acquired your engineering knowledge 
largely through men and will continue to do so. The soundness of 
your engineering knowledge depends in part upon your knowledge of 
men ; but what is still more important the effectiveness with which you 
will use your engineering knowledge depends very intimately upon 



348 STUDY MEN. 

your knowledge of men. Hence, you are urged, as you do your part 
in the world, to study men as well as engineering. You are urged to 
pay attention to all phases of the men around you, to see and appreci- 
ate them as literary and artistic men, as well as technical men, as men 
of feeling as well as men of thought, as incarnated motives as well as 
thinking and working machines. 

To attain to the highest success as an engineer you should not only 
be able to reach correct conclusions quickly when you have the facts 
before you for direct observation. You should also have the power to 
draw correct conclusions quickly from information which comes to you 
through other men. This power comes largely from knowing men. 

To attain to the highest success as an engineer you must not be 
the type of man who knows how to do things excellently but cannot 
tell others how to do them, — ^the man who gets knowledge abundantly 
but can apply it only through his own fingers. Instead of devoting 
your energy simply to increasing your own output by fifty or even one 
hundred per cent, it is far better, — you make yourself more useful to 
the world — by using your energy to increase the output of each of one 
hundred men by ten per cent. The world recognizes this by awarding 
the prizes to the administrators. 



CRITICISM OF THE ENGINEERING SCHOOLS. 

By 

Professor Dugald C. Jackson. 

Unfortunately, most of this address, which was delivered in Novem- 
'ber, 1909, to the Stevens Engineering Society of Stevens Institute of 
Technology, is hardly suitable for the purpose of this book. A few ex- 
tracts from it, however, may be read by students to advantage, and they 
are here reproduced, both on account of their value and to provide a 
specimen of the technical writing of one of our leading instructors in 
electrical engineering. Prof. Jackson occupies that chair in the Massa- 
chusetts Institute of Technology. 

He was born at Kennett Square, Pa., Feb. 13, 1865, and was grad- 
uated with the degree of C. E. from Pennsylvania State College in 
1885 ; then he went to Cornell University for two years of post graduate 
study, specializing in electrical engineering. 

In 1887 with two other electrical engineers he or;^anized the West- 
ern Engineering Co., which soon established an extensive business in 
electrical work, notably in connection with the Sprague System of trac- 
tion. In 1889 The Western Engineering Company and its business 
were purchased by the Edison interests, then Professor Jackson became 
Assistant Chief Engineer of the Sprague Electric Railway and Motoi 
Company with headquarters in New York City, but operating all over 
the United States on the introduction of the Sprague System of electric 
railways. When this Company also was absorbed by the Edison in- 
terests, Mr. Jackson moved to Chicago to take charge of the Central 
District for the combination. 

In 1891 he accepted appointment as Professor of Electrical Engi- 
neering at the University of Wisconsin, where he continued as head of 
the department until 1907, when he was elected to a similar position in 
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which position he still oc- 
cupies. 

In addition to his teaching Professor Jackson attends to a large 
consulting practice, which, however, is mainly handled by his brother, 
as his own energies are principally devoted to the development of his 
department at the Institute, in which work he has been eminently suc- 
cessful. 



349 



350 THE ENGINEERING SCHOOLS. 

He is a member of many of the leading technical societies of 
America, and has been honored by the presidency of two of them, viz., 
the Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education and the Ameri- 
can Institute of Electrical Engineers. 

He is the author of a number of valuable papers and standard text 
books on Electrical Engineering subjects. 

Editors. 



CRITICISM OF THE ENGINEERING SCHOOLS. 

By 

Professor Dugald C. Jackson. 



How many of you young men, students of engineering, composing 
this audience have reflected upon the meaning of the profession which 
you are intending to follow, or of the duties which are associated 
with it? How many of you have in mind a clear-cut definition of the 
character of the mental processes used by experienced engineers in 
executing their duties? How many of you have a clear recognition 
of the distinctions of mind and method which compose the differences 
between an engineer and a well-educated mechanic of unusual skill? 
You must reflect on all of these points and come to adequate convic- 
tions before you can become of the ablest and most distinguished 
ranks of engineers. These things can be organized in one's mind only 
by the thoughtful reflection which arouses the imagination. Thought- 
ful reflection is, to paraphrase Lowell, as needful for the imagination 
as society is wholesome for the character; and an engineer's education 
can be scarcely begun until he learns that an exact and truthful imag- 
ination is one of his most important professional possessions. 

But we must also remember that a truly influential man must know 
something of literature, biography, history, art, and music. He must be 
a man of complete living. "To prepare us for complete living," Her- 
bert Spencer said in his interesting book on educaiton, "is the function 
which education has to discharge; and the only rational mode of judg- 
ing of any educational course is to judge in what degree it discharges 
such function." Spencer also defines what he means by complete living, 
and every able, reflecting man may give a similar definition out of his 
own consciousness and experience: An education for complete living 
includes training the faculties of self-preservation, the faculties of 
self-support, the faculties of the domestic life and proper parentage, 
the faculties of good citizenship including interest and activity in the 
betterment of our political and social relations, the faculties of properly 
enjoying one's leisure and lending enjoyment to others. 

The study of science and its applications as carried on in the atmos- 
phere of our better engineering schools may surely be made an impor- 

351 



352 THE ENGINEERING SCHOOLS, 

tant stimulus to each of the powers and faculties which are required for 
complete living. It has been asserted that it lends itself more particu- 
larly to the earlier and less disinterested ones; but that this is necessary 
I must deny. The profession of the engineer demands a creative im- 
agination cultivated to the sober clear sight which sees things as they 
are, and from which springs an appreciation of art, literature, and 
music which rivals that produced in any other manner. But the physi- 
cal sciences and their applications, even when coupled with desirable 
dilettantism, are not adequate to the requirements of engineering in 
its broadest sense; and the political and social sciences must be added 
to the list. 

In this latter respect most of our engineering curricula have been 
startlingly deficient. I even lay the charge at the door of your own great 
Institute; an Institute which has instructed the spirit of many who have 
become of the nation's leading engineers. Will you look through that 
list of distinguished engineers and tell me how many have become not- 
able for activities in the political and social affairs of the nation? We 
can count to your credit your distinguished alumnus and President and 
a few others of corresponding public spirit, but they are few when noted 
in comparison with the importance of the engineer's work in civilization 
and civic life and the important influence which the Institute has borne 
in American engineering. Remember that the existence of civilization 
as we know it, and to a large degree its advancement, depend upon trans- 
portation and intercommunication, which are fundamentally engineering 
industries. Are the engineers then to allow those important political and 
civic activities which cling around civilized life to fall under the sole 
direction of others? 

It is an easy answer to say that the engineers are too busy in work- 
ing and directing the economic advances of civilization to afford at- 
tention to the way in which political and civic activities are guided; but 
this answer is inadequate. The lawyers, the physicians, the merchants 
are also busily engaged in affairs of importance, in their kind, and they 
might make a similar excuse for abstaining from political and social 
activity ; in which case, I think we must all admit, our forms of gov- 
ernment would soon break down from want of adequately trained and 
disinterested leaders. 

I take the ground that it is desirable for students as well as faculties 
to recognize, reflect on, and understand the human shortcomings of the 
courses of training. By no other means, it seems to me, can earnest stu- 
dents be stimulated to make the most of their opportunities and belie 
the charge of inefficiency that is sometimes laid at the door of engineer- 



JACKSON. 353 

ing graduates. I think there is no doubt that the engineering courses 
make the best preparation for engineering and industrial Hfe that has 
been devised. Good engineers Hved before the engineering schools ; but 
the engineering schools are doing a tremendous work in providing men 
with the mental means to extend engineering knowledge and advance 
engineering practice. 

One of the things that students, to their disadvantage, commonly 
fail to keep constantly in mind is the fact that a man of ability and 
courage can usually make of himself that which his ambitions dictate. 
If you set your ambitions right there need be no fear of your reasonable 
success. Failure by a man of ability and courage, who also has the ad- 
vantage of education, is scarcely to be condoned. The only sufficient ex- 
cuse is an inadequate physique or ill health caused through no fault of 
the individual. In engineering nothing is ordinarily sufficient to excuse 
failure. 

********** 

If a man concentrates his efforts, is honest, is patient, performs his 
duties with thoroughness, masters the principles relating to his employ- 
ment, and thinks (it is remarkable "How many never think, who think 
they do"), he is sure to succeed. True success is a great achievement, 
and great achievements require long expenditure of well-directed en- 
deavor for their erection. 

********** 



ADDRESS TO THE GRADUATING CLASS OF THE SCHOOL 
OF ENGINEERING AT THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS. 

By 
Dr. J. A. L. Waddell. 

This address was delivered in 1893 by one of the Editors and lis- 
tened to by the other, who was then a student of K. U. No comment 
is permissible ; but the reader's attention is called specially to the advice 
given to young graduate engineers to obtain a wide, general experi- 
ence in comparatively low positions before settling down to one particu- 
lar line of work. This experiment has been tried by a number of men 
and with great success. 

Editors. 



355 



ADDRESS TO THE GRADUATING CLASS OF THE SCHOOL 
OF ENGINEERING AT THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS. 

By 
Dr. J. A. L. Waddell. 

In an address like this, it is, I suppose, in order for me to give to 
you, who are about to undertake the duties of practical life, some good 
advice based upon my personal experience, which, by the way, covers 
about eighteen years of practice in various branches of engineering, in- 
cluding that of civil engineering education. Unfortunately, it is a fact 
that, in general, people are more fond of giving advice than of taking 
it; and I have found on a number of occasions that advice given to stu- 
dents was unheeded. It is an old saying that each one must "dree his 
ain weird," and there is a great deal of truth in it; nevertheless I have 
seen occasions when advice from older men was eagerly sought after 
and appreciated when given. To many minds the receiving of advice 
and acting upon it is an indication of mental inferiority, or at least of 
a lack of strong-mindedness ; but I have noticed that the individuals who 
are governed by such ideas generally make a failure in both professional 
and business life. Self-reliance is a very good thing, if not carried too 
far, and, in fact, is an essential to success in any calling; nevertheless, 
its possession should not debar one from profiting by the experience of 
others. 

I can look back to a portion of my life when some sound, practical 
advice from an older engineer would have been of the greatest benefit to 
me, in that it would have been the means of preventing me from wast- 
ing considerable valuable time, simply because I did not know how to 
employ it advantageously. 

Let me hope, then, that my words to-day will not be entirely wast- 
ed, but that some of you will benefit by them, and that in the years to 
come I shall occasionally run across one of you who will tell me that 
my advice was good, and that it has proved useful to him. 

Please remember that it is based upon my personal experience as 
well as upon observation of the careers of others, and that it is drawn 
from both successes and failure; because there is always a great deal 
to be learned about "how not to do it." Please remember, also, that I 
am in great sympathy with students of civil engineering; for at heart I 
am still a professor, and some day after I have earned sufficient money 

357 



358 KANSAS UNIVERSITY ADDRESS. 

in the practice of engineering to permit me to indulge in such extrava- 
gance, I should like again to occupy a professor's chair. To my mind 
there is no more useful or higher branch of the engineering profession 
than that of instruction, notwithstanding the openly avowed opinion of 
many practicing engineers to the contrary. It is not sufficient, though, 
to recognize for oneself the equality of professors and practicing en- 
gineers ; but it is necessary to make the world at large acknowledge 
the fact. Steps in this direction, I am happy to say, are now being 
taken ; and today the professor of civil engineering takes higher rank 
in the American Society of Civil Engineers than he did a few years ago. 

But to return to the subject in hand, viz., advice to young engin- 
eers. On account of the kindly feeling I entertain toward all engineer- 
ing students, especially those who are earnest and ambitious, I shall 
speak to you very freely and openly, giving you of the best that I have, 
even if by so doing I lay myself open to adverse criticism. 

But to accomplish what I have in mind I must drop all formality 
in addressing you, and meet each of you as man to man upon a most 
intimate footing — in fact I must speak as if I had known each one of 
you for years and had taken a personal interest in your welfare. I shall 
take it for granted that you will permit this liberty, and shall govern 
myself accordingly. In following this method I shall have to reduce my 
address to a rambling discourse, ruining it perhaps as far as elegance is 
concerned, but at the same time rendering it the more useful. 

As Commencement Day approaches, each engineering student of the 
graduating class, as soon as he has assured himself of his graduation, be- 
gins to think more and more of the work that he shall do after finishing 
his course of study, and of the position that he will obtain. He natural- 
ly gauges the positions that he hears of by the amount of salary offered 
in each case ; and strives to obtain the one to which the highest salary is 
attached. In so doing he makes a fundamental and most serious mis- 
take, because the true ultimate value of any position offered to a newly 
fledged engineer is an inverse function of the salary paid. This sounds, 
perhaps, like a very strange and wild statement, but it is, nevertheless, 
a true one; — let us look into the matter a little, and perhaps you will 
agree with me. The highest salary in this country paid to young engin- 
eers immediately after graduation is, as far as my experience goes, one 
hundred dollars per month ; and this amount is given only in very flush 
times when there is a great demand for assistants in the field. To earn 
such a salary at the start, the young engineer must be already well post- 
ed on the practical part of the work in addition to being versed in the 
theory. Now what practical work is there on which students are posted ? 



WADDELL. 359 

Why, simply elementary surveying ! Consequently the fortunate or un- 
fortunate young man (according to the point of view of the person con- 
sidering the case), who receives one hundred dollars per month to begin 
with, will have his attention confined ito the laying out of town lots for 
speculators or to surveying farms ; and how much, pray, is to be learned 
on that kind of work? Something, of course, because no one can do 
work of any kind without increasing the amount of his knowledge and 
experience ; but how little it is in comparison with what is to be learned 
in the higher branches of engineering! Again, what future prospects 
are there in such work as surveying? It is seldom, indeed, that a sur- 
veyor makes more than a bare living, and when times are bad the young 
engineer engaged in this line is very likely to lose his position or have to 
spend many idle days without pay. 

Railroading offers a better field to the recent graduate than does 
land surveying, and at the same time the pay is fair. For instance, any 
m.an on a railroad survey can really earn for his employers forty or 
fifty dollars per month besides the cost of his subsistence, even if it be 
only by dragging chain or driving stakes ; because the life is a hard one 
physically, and manual labor can always command a certain amount of 
pecuniary compensation. But the young engineer who works in a sub- 
ordinate position on a railroad survey will have to spend a great deal of 
time in a manner that is profitable to his employers, but not so profitable 
to himself. He will be gaining some experience, of course, but not the 
greatest possible amount or the highest grade of experience. Notwith- 
standing this, I believe there is no more attractive opening, and often- 
times no more truly profitable one, to the recent graduate than a posi- 
tion on a railroad survey. Coming as he does from a sedentary life, and 
too often worn out both physically and mentally by overwork, the active 
exercise in the field proves to be exactly what he needs ; and after a few 
days, w^hen the physical exhaustion attendant on unaccustomed bodily 
exercise has passed away, he feels like a new man, the mere acts of liv- 
ing and breathing become a pleasure, the sun appears to shine more 
briohtly than it has shone for years, and he experiences a new phase of 
existence. Such a life is most seductive, and unless one is careful, it is 
apt to divert his tastes and ambitions from higher to lower things. The 
truly ambitious young man can, however, improve his time in such a 
position by picking up stray bits of knowledge here and there, not only 
on his work, but by conversation with the other members of the party. 

An experience of this kind at the outset of one's career will give 
him a taste for out-of-door life which he will retain as long as he lives. 
On this point I speak from personal experience ; for shortly after grad- 
uating I took a position on the Canadian Pacific Railway that caused me 



360 KANSAS UNIVERSITY ADDRESS. 

to spend eighteen months in the wilderness to the northwest of Lake 
Superior, where, in addition to my strictly professional duties, I had to 
work harder physically than any day laborer in civilization. Now, 
strange to say, there is no portion of my professional career to which I 
look back with as much pleasure as I do to those eighteen months spent 
in the wilds. There is something peculiarly attractive and inspiriting in 
such a rough life, with its hard work, long tramps through the swamps 
in summer and on snow shoes in winter, its hardships, which include 
coarse and sometimes not overplentiful food, uncomfortable lodgings 
(generally consisting of a leaky tent carpeted with hemlock boughs to 
serve as a couch), innumerable insect pests, wet weather in summer and 
extreme cold in winter; its jolly evenings spent over the camp fire, where 
past experiences in bush-life are narrated, and even its dangers, which 
give spice to the whole life. Such dangers were by no means imagin- 
ary ; as many a poor fellow has lost his life in that country through forest 
fire, severe cold (the temperature often passing below the freezing point 
of mercury), drowning by falling through the ice of early winter, or by 
the capsizing of a canoe; or worse still through being lost in the woods 
and perishing slowly from starvation. 

This early experience of mine in railroading, together with still 
earlier experiences in camping out, gave me such a taste for bush life 
that even today I would rather spend one month in hunting and fishing 
among the Rocky Mountains than twelve months on a pleasure trip in 
Europe. 

But to return to the question of compensation for services imme- 
diately after graduation. There are various lines of engineering where 
an inexperienced man can earn a living at office work, but the pay is 
necessarily small ; because the work can be done by cheap draftsmen 
who are content to accept a small wage, and are in truth generally worth 
no more than they get. Such positions will eventually lead to something 
higher, but the young engineer will be compelled to do a great deal of 
drudgery in order to earn the money which his employer pays him. 
In any case, though, an engineer needs sufficient experience in draft- 
ing to enable him to learn how to put his ideas on paper rapidly, and how 
to make a presentable drawing, consequently such experience is bene- 
ficial ; but one should avoid having too much of it, in order not to be- 
come a mere drafting machine. 

But now let us suppose that our new alumnus enters the office of 
an engineer who is doing a large amount of practical work in one of the 
higher branches of engineering, what do you suppose his services are 
really worth to his employer? Candidly, except in most uncommon 
cases, they are worth absolutely nothing; yes, oftentimes less than noth- 



WADDELL. 361 

ing, because not only has a great deal of his work to be done over again, 
but also his employer has to devote considerable time to his instruction 
in fundamental principles and practical methods, one day of which time 
is worth in dollars and cents more than a whole month of the young 
man's service. But see what the young man is gaining — not a day, not 
an hour passes without his learning a number of valuable principles, 
facts, and methods, so that at the end of a month he will have acquired 
a greater amount of valuable knowledge than he would have obtained 
in a year when working on a fair salary at routine work. In such an 
office the newcomer who has had no practical experience seldom receives 
any salary; and the time is not far distant when in this country an in- 
experienced young man will have to pay for the privilege of working in 
such an office. This has been the custom for many years in England, but 
it is a custom that has been abused by the employers, who have thus 
brought the system of apprenticeship into ill repute. 

And now have I said enough to convince you of the correctness of 
my statement that "the true ultimate value of any position offered to 
the newly fledged engineer is an inverse function of the salary paid" ? I 
shall leave each one of you to answer this question for himself, after 
thinking over at his leisure what I have said on the subject. 

Now let us take up the question which each of you has undoubted- 
ly propounded to himself many times of late, viz., "What branch of 
engineering shall I adopt as my life's work?" You have found it a dif- 
ficult one to answer — have you not? I do not see how it could well be 
otherwise; for you have as yet had very little opportunity to see what 
the various branches of the profession are like, and of what their work 
consists. Some of you may be able to answer the question to-day to 
your satisfaction, or at least you may think you can, but the majority 
of you have been unable to make up your minds. In my opinion, it is 
not advisable for you to try to do so at present. This is no time for 
you to choose a specialty; ana even if you do choose one, you ought 
not to settle down now to practice it to the exclusion of all other work. 
The old definition of an engineer, viz., "a man who knows a great deal 
about something, and something about everything," was not a bad one, 
and still holds good even in these days of specialties. There is no 
branch of engineering that is separate and distinct from all other 
branches, consequently the more general the experience obtained in 
youth, the greater will be a man's capacity and the broader his mental 
grasp during his best working years. On this account I would advise 
all of you who can afford to do so, to spend a few months, or at most 
a year, on one class of work, mastering as many details as possible, then 
drop it and take up another branch, and so on until you have obtained 



362 KANSAS UNIVERSITY ADDRESS. 

a wide, comprehensive, and thorough experience in general engineering. 
Meanwhile, make up your mind as to what specialty you will choose, or 
at least as to what line of engineering you will follow; and as soon as 
you have decided finally, let your studies and practice tend continually 
more and more toward that chosen line, until eventually you abandon all 
others for it and make it your life's work. Be content for a while to 
earn a bare living, provided that you are obtaining the experience you 
desire. If you d(> this, take my word for it, you will find that at middle 
life you will outrank, professionally, those who started in with you but 
who adopted the policy of confining themselves to one line of work and 
thought, thus rendering themselves men of one idea or rather one set 
of ideas. 

Some of you, perhaps, on account of pecuniary obligations, con- 
tracted in obtaining your education, or family responsibilities, cannot 
take this advice; but will have from force of circumstances to settle 
down in one place with the object of earning as quickly as possible an 
income that will suffice to pay off your indebtedness or maintain your 
family. If there be any of you so situated, I would urge upon you the 
importance of extensive technical reading in other branches of the pro- 
fession than the one in which you engage, in order that you may pre- 
vent yourselves from becoming fossilized and incapable of taking inter- 
est in anything outside of your special line of work. 

To all of you I would say, ''Don't leave school with the idea that you 
have completed your technical education; for, no matter how thorough 
your course may have been, your technical education has merely begun." 
It is true that you have had enough book learning to enable you to earn 
a living without further study, but you can never attain professional dis- 
tinction without continuing your studies. I recognize the fact that it is 
quite difficult to carry on a course of technical reading when one has to 
work long hours in either the office or the field, but I have proved by per- 
sonal experience that it is practicable. The method that I adopted was 
to take a certain treatise, mathematical or otherwise, and arrange to read 
it through thoroughly and understandingly in a certain number of days, 
laying out beforehand the amount of each day's reading, and basing it 
upon the average time that I had to spare and the character of the book. 
If for any reason I failed to complete the reading allotted for any day, I 
read an extra amount the next day, and sometimes read ahead of my al- 
lowance so as to anticipate possible interference with my plans. In this 
way I accomplished the entire reading in the allotted time ; and it paid. 
It is a good practice to carry in one's pocket some technical book to read 
at odd moments, for instance, during the noon hour in the field or while 
waiting for a railway train or even while traveling on the cars, although 



WADDELL. 363 

I cannot really commend the latter practice because of its injurious effect 
upon the eyes. 

It is essential that you read the principal technical newspapers and 
periodicals in order to keep abreast of the times, also the 'transactions of the 
leading engineering societies, especially those papers therein which treat 
of subjects allied to your line of work. There is one point on which 
I wish to caution you, viz., that an article is not necessarily valuable be- 
cause it is composed wholly or partially of mathematics. As a rule, most 
of the mathematical papers on engineering subjects that one runs across 
are mere rubbish; but occasionally a really good mathematical engineer- 
ing paper appears; and this ought to be read. After a little experience 
you will find no difficulty in sifting the wheat from the chaff. Do not 
misunderstand me in this matter of mathematics, for I would be the last 
one to advocate abandoning the study of that science after graduation. 
I merely wish to warn you against wasting valuable time on investiga- 
tions which are too often based on false assumptions, or that treat of 
matters which could be settled more simply in some other manner. 

In determining upon a course of reading, one should not confine him- 
self entirely to technical books and papers, but should choose some stand- 
ard literary works for the purpose of improving his style in writing; 
for, alas ! it must be confessed that most writers on engineerng subjects 
have a great deal to learn concerning correct literary style. 

In my opinion, it is the duty of each member of the engineering pro- 
fession to add his mite to engineering literature ; although one should 
never write a book or paper merely for the sake of producing some- 
thing. The most valuable information that the profession possesses is 
to be found in papers published by engineering societies, and describing 
works completed, the difficulties encountered during construction, and 
the methods adopted for doing the work. Each of these papers, to- 
gether with the discussion evoked by them, not only marks a step in 
constructive progress, but also indicates how the next steps should be 
taken. Abstract papers or those of a generalizing nature are also of the 
greatest value; but there are only a few men who are competent to 
prepare such papers, consequently their number should be limited. It 
takes a bold man to write such a paper ; and he is likely to get into 
trouble because of it, hence I should advise you to confine your literary 
efforts to descriptions of work done or the treatment of minor details 
until your experience has accumulated sufficiently to warrant you in 
an endeavor to generalize. 

In preparing engineering papers, cultivate a clear, terse, and con- 
cise literary style, so as to express your ideas in the fewest words con- 
sistent with a due consideration for fluency and elegance of diction. 



364 KANSAS UNIVERSITY ADDRESS. 

Cut out all padding from your writings, because engineers are too busy 
to spare time to read anything that is unnecessary. The proper age at 
which to commence writing technical papers is not easy to fix, but in 
general it is safe to advise that one's early efforts be presented to minor 
or local engineering societies; then if these be well received, future 
papers may be presented to the engineering periodicals or to the national 
engineering societies. There is nothing which a young engineer can 
do that will advance his professional standing so much as the writing 
of a good, sound technical article for publication; and there is nothing 
that he can do which is more detrimental to his reputation than to write 
an incorrect or weak one. When contemplating the writing of a paper, 
it is a good plan to ask one's self these questions: 'Ts this paper really 
needed?" "Will it fill a gap?" and "Will it prove useful to the profes- 
sion?" If the answers be in the affirmative, write the paper; if not, 
don't. 

As for the writing of a technical book, better postpone such work 
until you have had at least eight or ten years' experience; and do not 
even then undertake it, unless you see that there is a need for such a 
treatise .as you contemplate writing, and that you have exactly the right 
information to present to the profession. 

While it is true that there are a great many technical books pub- 
lished which should never have been written, it is equally true that 
technical literature is far behind engineering practice, and that there 
never was a time when sound engineering treatises, prepared by 
thoroughly posted, practical, and educated writers, were as much need- 
ed as they are to-day. You see, therefore, that for those of you who have 
literary tastes and tendencies, there is plenty of occupation ahead. Un- 
fortunately, there is no money to be gained directly in such work; but 
on the other hand there is reputation to be made, and that means even- 
tually money, although, it is a mistake to connect the two at all closely 
even in one's thoughts. Professional reputation in itself ought to be 
sufficient incentive for a young engineer of the right sort ; but the fact 
that the obtaining of it will ensure pecuniary success is undoubtedly an 
extra stimulus to exertion. 

Let me advise you to pay special attention to the study of specifica- 
tions and contracts for engineering works, and to learn how to prepare 
them for yourselves. You can learn readily the style of such documents, 
but it takes years of experience to enable one to prepare them so that 
they shall cover the entire ground in a perfectly satisfactory manner. 
The more experienced an engineer the more thorough will be the speci- 
fications that he writes ; but from this it does not follow that in compar- 
ing specifications prepared by two engineers their values will vary di- 



WADDELL. 365 

rectly as the amounts of experience of the writers; because some engin- 
eers seem to be unable ever to learn to write good specifications. This 
is due to a want of literary training in their early education ; and a most 
deplorable and grievous fault it is. 

Post yourselves on legal decisions of interest to engineers, and let 
some of your miscellaneous reading include the laws of contracts. 

Study business methods as much as possible, and learn how accounts 
should be kept. These things are important, and they need not demand 
very much time ; because with all the mental training you have had, 
and will have in your practice, you ought to grasp readily all such com- 
paratively simple matters. A good way to master them is to consult 
with men of business, bookkeepers, etc., with whom your work throws 
you in contact. They can show you often in a few minutes what might 
take you hours to study out by yourselves. 

And here let me give you a little piece of sound advice. Never be 
too proud to learn from the most ignorant. Even the navvy who handles 
a pick and shovel can give a young engineer valuable information con- 
cerning earthwork; and the stonecutter and quarryman will generally 
be found well posted on many matters of importance in masonry con- 
struction that are not treated in the text books. 

Whenever you have an opportunity, study how to manage men, and 
how to get the greatest amount of useful work out of the workmen. A 
little tact will often accomplish results that could not be obtained in any 
other way than by its use. While it is necessary to be firm in dealing 
with workmen, and in fact with all employees, it is well to treat them 
reasonably and not to lay down the law too severely. The better the 
understanding between employer and employees, the greater will be the 
amount of work accomplished. 

Post yourselves concerning the money values of all kinds of engi- 
neering construction ; nothing gives the general public more confidence 
in an engineer's ability than to perceive that he is well versed in the 
cost of all kinds of work. 

Immediately after graduating each one of you should enter the 
American Society of Civil Engineers as a Junior, and should get his 
grade advanced to that of Associate MemlDer, and finally to that of Mem- 
ber, as soon as he can qualify. As a member of any grade in that 
Society you have the right to take part in the discussion of any paper, 
and to present to the Board of Direction for acceptance any paper of 
your own. You are also entitled to receive the Transactions of the 
Society and to attend all of its meetings. 

If you are stationed for any length of time in any city where there 
is a local engineering society, it will pay you to join it, and to take as 



366 KANSAS UNIVERSITY ADDRESS. 

active a part in the proceedings as your practical experience will 
warrant. 

You will find that all through life it will pay you to make for future 
reference systematic notes concerning not only your own work, but also 
that of others; but to be of any practical value these notes should be 
transferred from time to time to an index book, so that any particular 
subject can at any time be found without delay. It is very important 
to know where to look for any required published information, and for 
this the various indices which have recently been issued will be found 
valuable. 

After finishing any large piece of work, and while it is still fresh in 
your mind, it is well to write out an epitome of knowledge gained on it, 
indicating the methods used, improvements to be made in them on future 
work of a similar character, mistakes to be avoided, etc., then have a 
number of copies of this struck off on a typewriter to keep for future 
reference for yourself and perhaps for others. 

In my practice I have found it very convenient to carry in the pocket 
a note book for recording "things to be done," so that whenever a new 
idea strikes me, or when I think of something that I wish to do, I make 
a note of it on a list ; and whenever I finish doing anything so recorded 
I draw a line through the item. When the list becomes too much erased, 
I prepare a new one by collecting the items that have not been crossed 
out. By the use of such a list I find that I can accomplish a great deal 
more than I could had I nothing but my memory to rely upon ; for when 
I have an idle minute, which, by the way, is not very often, I pull out 
my note book and see what there is that I can do. I would suggest that 
you give this method a fair trial. 

Some engineers believe in keeping a diary. I do theoretically — but 
practically I have failed to keep one, although sometimes I wish I 
could remember what I was doing on a certain day, and cannot. It 
would be well to give the diary a trial also. 

You will find as you go through life that earnestness of purpose is 
the main-spring of success, and that if you set your mind on attaining 
any object within reason, you will, if you keep on trying, eventually suc- 
ceed in attaining it. I am a firm believer in the French proverb ''Tout 
vient a celui qui salt attendre/' because I have tested it, and have never 
yet found it fail to be correct. 

In all your work develop and employ constantly such a perfect sys- 
tem of checking and counter-checking as will render you as nearly abso- 
lutely proof against making mistakes as it is possible for fallible humani- 
ty to become. By "so doing you will save yourselves infinite worry and 
trouble. I know of no more unpleasant sensation than that which one 



WAD DELL. 367 

experiences immediately after ascertaining that he has made a blunder; 
and, moreover, the sensation does not pass away as quickly as one might 
wish. I have known cases in which the duration extended over years. 

Do not be discouraged by failure, but endeavor to profit by it; and 
do not be afraid to tell brother engineers of your failures. It will do 
you no harm, and may do them good. It takes a brave man to acknowl- 
edge a mistake or a failure, but a man who is deficient in that kind 
of courage would do well to keep out of the engineering profession. 
Mistakes of both oneself and assistants are the bete noire of a conscien- 
tious engineer, but I find that the longer one is in practice the fewer 
mistakes wall escape his observation. 

Become acquainted with as many engineers as possible, and try to 
establish yourselves on such a friendly footing with a few prominent 
members of the profession that you can occasionally go to them for 
advice. It is a fact that if an engineer of established reputation takes 
a personal interest in any bright, active, energetic, and ambitious young 
engineer, he can be of the greatest assistance to him, and can help him 
to advance with almost phenomenal rapidity in the profession. * 

Should you desire at any time to obtain some general knowledge that 
cannot be found in print, do not hesitate to ask other engineers for it. 
The chances are that it will be given to you most cordially ; for any pro- 
fessional man of the right stamp is always glad to help a brother engi- 
neer with advice and to give him the benefit of his greater experience. 
It may happen occasionally, though, that you will be snubbed. Unfor- 
tunately, one cannot make such a sweeping statement concerning engi- 
neers as it is customary to make concerning sportsmen, viz., that "all 
sportsmen are good fellows." I will say this, however, that as far as my 
personal experience is concerned "most engineers are good fellows," 
and I think you will find that there is less jealousy and more good fellow- 
ship among engineers than among the members of any other profession. 

It is hardly necessary for me to touch upon the converse of this, 
viz., that you should be ever ready to aid a brother engineer in every 
way that lies in your power. 

Avoid all petty professional jealousies, and remember that to rise in 
the world it is not necessary to push others down. If it were for no other 
reason than mere policy, it is generally better to say a good word for 
another engineer than to speak against him; but this is no reason for 
one's stultifying himself when asked if he can recommend for a position 
someone of whom he does not approve. It is too often the case that 
when an engineer is discharging an employee for whom he has no use, 
he gives him a written general recommendation, merely for the sake 



368 KANSAS UNIVERSITY ADDRESS. 

of parting pleasantly. This is a mistaken policy; because it tends to 
detract from the value of all written recommendations. 

Assistants on engineering work may be divided into two classes, 
those who work for the almighty dollar, and those who, as it is termed, 
work for glory. Those of the first class adhere to certain fixed hours, 
and as soon as quitting time comes, or a little before, they get ready to 
stop work for the day. Moreover they always appear afraid of doing 
too much for their money. They reach the climax of their career when 
they obtain a position worth about five dollars per day. Those of the 
second class work more for the knowledge and experience to be obtained 
than for the salary, and seem to pay but little attention to office hours, 
continuing their labors far into the night when interested in what they 
are doing, or when there is any necessity for extra exertion. Such men 
rise steadily and often rapidly to responsible, well-paid positions; and 
the less they say about increase of salary the oftener it appears to be 
raised. It is unnecessary for me to advise you as to which of these 
classes you should join. 

* Of course there are times in a man's professional career when it may 
be advisable for him to assert himself and demand proper compensation 
for his services, if he thinks that they are not adequately remunerated; 
but this should not be during the first few years of his practice, when 
he is in reality serving his apprenticeship. Later on, especially after 
marriage, when the welfare and comfort of wife and children depend 
upon the amount of his earnings, it bec<:.ti;.^s a man's duty to look out for 
the dollars. 

And this brings me to another point upon which I desire to touch, as 
it is an important one, viz., the best age for an engineer to marry. The 
young man who immediately after graduating rushes blindly into matri- 
mony, regardlesi> of how it will affect his professional career, makes a 
serious mistake; for the care of a family will prevent him from going 
from one class of work to another in order to obtain a varied experience, 
and will tie him hand and foot, necessitating his grinding day after day 
on work that perhaps he detests, and on which there is nothing more to 
learn, because the dear ones at home are dependent upon his daily earn- 
ings. If circumstances permit, it is well for the young engineer to wait 
until he is twenty-eight or thirty years old before he puts on the matri- 
monial yoke, but It is not advisable to delay much longer than this, if he 
intends ever to marry at all ; because the longer he waits the more set 
in his ways will he become, which condition, as we all know, Is not com- 
patible with the principles of American home rule. 

Let me take the liberty of advising you to endeavor always to 
save a portion of your earnings and to invest it in some good security 



WADDELL. 369 

.which will bring you in a fair rate of interest. Any investment which 
promises more than six or eight per cent, should be looked upon with 
suspicion; for while one such scheme succeeds, three others will fail. 
You may consider me an authority on this point, as my experience is 
personal and has been paid for. It may be difficult to save money when 
one is traveling from place to place obtaining his professional training 
in the manner which I have suggested; but still it is practicable, even 
if the amount be as small as five or ten dollars a month. Here, too, I 
am speaking from experience, because as a young man I spent practically 
all I earned, and the time came when I wished that I had been more 
economical. After marriage you will find that this matter of saving 
money becomes an absolute necessity, so why not begin it at once? 
Remember that I do not advise niggardliness nor parsimony; for such 
attributes are incompatible with American manhood; but on the other 
hand extravagance is unnecessary and uncalled for. 

I should like to call to your attention a series of papers and dis- 
cussions on the subject of "engineering ethics" which the technical press 
has been publishing lately. The importance of this subject cannot be 
over-estimated. The engineering profession needs a code of ethics in 
order to raise itself in the public opinion to the position it ought to 
occupy. I fear it is going to take time to establish such a code ; but the 
day will surely come when we shall have one ; and then our profession 
will be recognized- as the highest of all, in that it takes the lead in the 
progress and development of the entire civilized world. Until this code 
be established, there is nothing for each of us to do except to have a little 
code for himself, consisting of a single principle, viz., "Do the square deal 
by everybody under all circumstances." At times it may be difficult to 
decide as to what is exactly the best thing to do; but, if one uses his 
judgment and endeavors to put himself mentally in the other man's 
place, his decision cannot be far from right. 

The engineer in charge of construction stands in a peculiar relation 
to both his employers and the contractors; and the true relation is not 
generally recognized. It is that of arbitrator, and not that of oppressor. 
No one who employs an engineer has a right to think that he purchases 
that engineer's conscience when he pays him his salary. It is as much 
an engineer's business to look out carefully for the rights of the con- 
tractor as it is to see that his employers receive the full value of what 
they pay for, and that all work is properly done. Believe me, no engin- 
eer ever yet made a success professionally by oppressing contractors. 
I consider it the engineer's duty to aid the contractor In every legitimate 
manner, and to save him expense whenever it is possible to do so proper- 
ly. Unless a contractor be satisfied with the profit he is making out of 



370 KANSAS UNIVERSITY ADDRESS. 

a piece of work, the chances are that he will slight it. In letting work it 
never pays to award the contract to any competitor for less than actual 
cost plus a living profit. The older an engineer grows, the more con- 
vinced will he become of the correctness of this statement. 

Let me call your attention to the importance of systematizing 
your work. The most successful engineer is he who can obtain the 
greatest amount of correct work out of those whom he employs, and it 
is only by looking ahead and laying out systematically the work of each 
individual and of the entire corps that this can be effected. 

Let me counsel each one of you to set for himself sooner or later 
an ultimate.object to be accomplished, and let it be a great one, but still 
well within the realms of possibility; and let him ever strive toward its 
attainment. If he succeed, he will be well repaid by the satisfaction of 
feeling that he has done some material good for his fellow mortals; but 
if not, he will still feel that he has done his best, and that his life has 
not been spent in vain. 

But after all, there are many important things in life for you other 
than professional advancement and success; although you may judge 
from my discourse that I have forgotten this, or that I do not even 
recognize it. Believe me, I would by no means counsel you to neglect 
the many social and other pleasures that are within your reach. It is 
bad policy to reduce one's self to a mere working machine ; and if you do, 
you will be sure to find that the machine is likely to break down or to 
run badly for want of a little lubrication. Every hard working man is 
entitled to an occasional holiday; and to do him the most good he 
ought to spend it in the manner which will afford him the most enjoy- 
ment. In the end, no time is lost; because the reviving effect of the 
vacation will enable him to work all the harder when he settles down 
to business once more. 

Again, a man has certain obligations toward his fellow men; and 
one of the most important is that he make himself agreeable and enter- 
taining when in company. This he cannot often do, if he be a mere 
drudge and a slave to his occupation. 

In the rapid development of humanity which is taking place at the 
present time, it is necessary that each individual take a deep and absorb- 
ing interest in one certain subject; but it is equally important that the 
people as a whole concern themselves with a variety of subjects, thus 
necessitating that each individual have a number of topics in which he 
takes at least a passing interest. 

Unless such were the case, the whole mass of humanity would be 
working without any coherent purpose, each unit being independent of 



WADDELL. 371 

all the others, and following a path of its own regardless of how that 
path interferes with those of the other units. 

A professional man is liable, on account of the intense interest he 
feels in his work, to overlook these facts ; and it is on this account that 
I make a point of advising each of you to mix as much as possible with 
his fellows, and to endeavor to make himself appreciated by them as 
something more than simply a hard-working engineer. 



23. 



LAST WORDS TO THE CIVIL ENGINEERING SENIORS. 

By 
Dr. Ira O. Baker. 

The kindly advice given by Dr. Baker to his young friends who 
were about to lose his guiding care is of extremely great importance and 
value. It is as good and sound to-day as when it was offered in 1894; 
hence it is to be hoped that the readers of this compilation of addresses 
will derive much benefit from Dr. Baker's wise and friendly words. 

Editors. 



373 



LAST WORDS TO THE CIVIL ENGINEERING SENIORS. 

By 

Dr. Ira O. Baker. 
Address to the Civil Engineering Club, University of Illinois, 

June 11, 1894. 

When the program committee asked me if I would present some- 
thing here this morning, I immediately thought that perhaps I might use 
the opportunity for a few final words with our graduating members. 
Frequently the circumstances and conditions under which anything is 
said give it an attention and weight which it would not otherwise have. 

When the traveler through an unknown country comes to the 
brow of a hill, if he is wise he surveys the landscape, selects an objective 
point ahead, decides upon his path through the valley below, and then 
proceeds step by step to find his way down the hill, through the valley, 
and up on the other side. Obviously the time to decide upon the path 
through the valley is when we are upon the hill top, and we are more 
sure to rea'^.h the goal by the shortest route if we keep our eye steadily 
fixed upon our mark ahead. 

You, members of the graduating class, are upon a hill top this 
morning. You are shortly to break off old relations and enter upon 
new ones. Let us see if we can find a worthy objective point ahead 
which shall serve as a help and inspiration while you wend your way 
through the valley. 

I am fully aware that this is the last time that I shall ever address 
you in the relations of teacher and taught, and it is with mixed feelings 
of regret and pleasure, of solicitude and anticipation that I bid you 
adieu; and I fain would reveal to you some of the feeling that a teacher 
has when he sends his boys out into the world to test their powers — 
and his. But the occasion demands a higher motive than merely per- 
sonal pleasure, so I ask your kind indulgence while I try to teach one 
more lesson. I make this attempt knowing that the occasion and your 
thoughts will more clearly reveal to you the truth I wish to teach than 
can my words. 

It is not necessary to remind you that recitations are ended; but 
I do want to urge upon you that you do not cease to be a student. 
Whatever the kind and stress of your occupation, keep a little time for 
study and reading. If your work here has been well done, you have barely 

375 



376 LAST WORDS TO SENIORS. 

reached that point where you are able to gain knowledge by self-di- 
rected effort. You will doubtless have many painful illustrations that 
you do not know it all, but your daily work will compel study of the 
practical details of your business. You will be compelled to get these 
matters, or you will not get work. I expect you to succeed reasonably 
well in these particulars ; but I desire to urge upon you that you con- 
tinue to grow, to expand, to increase your powers. You ought always 
to have in hand some subject upon which you are doing thoroughly 
downright hard study. Such a course is absolutely necessary for in- 
tellectual vigor and activity. In the next few years you ought to study 
professional subjects as a matter of course, but you ought also to 
broaden your education and extend your horizon by the study of scien- 
tific and literary and historical subjects. I have time only to assert this 
point, not to prove it. 

Undoubtedly you will be tempted to say that you haven't time for 
such study, but I say you must make the time. If I had time I should 
like to illustrate this by giving you some of the particulars of the lives 
of Gladstone, and Garfield, and Lincoln, whose labors and cares were 
simply prodigious; and yet they found time for an astonishingly wide 
range of reading and study. To make this matter definite, let me urge 
that you regularly and conscientiously give one-half hour each day to 
the study of some subject which will broaden your knowledge and ex- 
tend your horizon. 

The world moves. New problems are continually arising which 
must be solved. The state and the nation have been very liberal to 
you, and have a right to demand that you shall meet these new obliga- 
tions when they arise. You are expected to find new and better solu- 
tions to old problems, and to lead us into unexplored and undiscovered 
fields. You have given to you five talents. Will you lay them away in 
a napkin, or will you use them and gain five other talents? 

By all means do not fail to cultivate the ability to write and speak 
your mother tongue correctly, forcibly, and even elegantly. Even an 
engineer has frequent use for this power, and his ability as an engineer 
is continually being judged by his written and spoken language. Eads 
is not infrequently ranked as the leading American engineer, but his 
reputation as an engineer is due as much to his ability in writing and 
speaking as to his knowledge of engineering. 

One precaution : Do not become a man of books to the exclusion 
of affairs. Society is all the time struggling with industrial questions, 
social reforms, and political problems which you, having received your 
education as a gift from the state, should help to solve. I have only 
time to hint this. 



BAKER. • 377 

In one respect your free education is liable to do you harm. You 
have received information more cheaply in the past than you ever can 
in the future. Do not be afraid to spend your money in travel to see 
things and men. There is a wonderful stimulus in whetting against other 
men, particularly those engaged in the same business as yourself. Do not 
fail to use travel as a means of continuing your education. Remember 
that there is a scattering abroad that increaseth and a withholding that 
impoverisheth. 

Allow me to offer a few hints to guide you in your intercourse 
vith your professional associates. 

1. Be patient and don't try to get on too fast. You may be 
over estimating your own abilities. It takes all summer to ripen the 
best apples. 

2. Be liberal in the measure of your work. Don't even think of 
excusing yourself from doing what you reasonably can, by saying that 
you are doing as much as you are paid for. As long as you hold the 
position and accept the pay, do good, honest, faithful work. If the 
labor demanded is too great, make a courteous, frank, straightforward 
protest, or offer your resignation. 

3. Be courteous and generous to your sub'ordinates. In this 
matter let the golden rule guide your action. One of the ways in which 
this rule is violated is in passing judgment upon the works of others, 
in the way of fault-finding and belittling them, picking flaws, making 
small criticisms of design and method. Does any engineer imagine he 
raises himself in the opinion of others by so doing, or in any way ad- 
vances his own prospects of success? Criticism for the purpose of 
suggesting improvements is a good thing, but criticism for " any other 
purpose is unworthy a true man. The world on the whole is fair in 
its estimate of men ; it recognizes the generous everywhere, and is just as 
sure to condemn the opposite. 

4. Guard as carefully as life itself a high standard of profes- 
sional honor and integrity : — whatever the measure of your professional 
success, — whether wealth and reputation crown your career, or disap- 
pointment and poverty be your constant and unwelcome companions, — • 
let no taint of suspicion attach to any professional act or utterance. As 
young engineers you are nearly certain to have some severe trials in this 
matter. In his relations with contractors, in his recommendation of 
patented or special devices, in preparing reports that may influence the 
markets, the engineer is liable to have his judgment warped by subtle 
and corrupting influences. You will save yourself much annoyance and 
possibly some danger, if you will at all times maintain a character of 
unquestionable integrity. It should not be difficult for the conscientious 



378 LAST WORDS TO SENIORS. 

engineer, jealous of his professional honor, to decide what is right and 
what is wrong. 

Now I think I can show you an objective point ahead by means of 
which you shall be able to find a way of safety and honor through the 
darkest valley of trial and temptation. I ask, then, what is your highest 
aim as engineers? Is it to stand at the head of your profession, and 
secure wealth and honor? Or is it scrupulously, conscientiously, and 
faithfully to discharge the duties of the positions in which you are 
placed ? If it is the former, then you have many chances of failure to one 
of success, for such success will often depend upon circumstances en- 
tirely beyond your control. If your highest ambition is conscientiously 
and faithfully to discharge the duties of your position, then success 
depends upon yourself, for it is assured by simple and constant attention 
to the requirements of each occasion as it arises. 

Ability, wealth, position, are all excellent things to possess. They 
mean, or may be made to mean, influence, weight, and power; but they 
are not the things which determine the essential value of a man. The' 
true worth is measured by his character; not by his abilities, not by 
his positions, not by his successes, but by what he himself is. 

We may all reach this most perfect manhood by simply doing all 
our work under the fullest appreciation of the meaning of that one 
word duty. That you may all through your life be actuated by this 
high motive, is my earnest petition. 



THE ENGINEER AS A PROFESSIONAL MAN. 

By 
Dr. Nelson Peter Lewis. 

The dicta of any man who has risen to high rank in the engineering 
world ought to command the attention and respect of all technical students 
and young engineers; hence the opinions expressed herein by Dr. Lewis, 
who has advanced gradually in America's metropolis to the exalted posi- 
tion of Chief Engineer of the Board of Estimates and Apportionment, 
ought to receive deep consideration from our readers. 

This address was delivered in 1910 at the Annual Commencement 
of the Thomas S. Clarkson Memorial School of Technology. 

Dr. Lewis was born at Red Hook, N. Y., Eebruary 1, 1856. He was 
educated at Red Hook Academy, St. Stephens College (A. B. 1875), and 
the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (C. E. 1879). In 1911 St. Stepnens 
College conferred upon him the honorary degree of LL. D. 

From 1879 till 1884 Dr. Lewis was engaged on railway work in 
Colorado and Louisiana; from 1884 to 1886 he was on the engineering 
staff of the City of Brooklyn, employed on the extension of the city's 
water supply; from 1886 to 1889 he was with the Central Railway Com- 
pany of Georgia on location, construction, and maintenance; and in 1889 
he returned to Brooklyn where he engaged in various branches of muni- 
cipal work. From 1894 till 1902 he was chief of the Bureau of High- 
ways of the City and Borough of Brooklyn ; and from 1902 to the present 
time he has been Chief Engineer of the Board of Estimates and Ap- 
portionment of New York City, the duties of his position covering the 
entire field of municipal engineering. 

He has served on a number of important municipal commissions and 
international congresses; and he was once sent to Europe to make a 
special study of the care and disposal of underground structures. 

He is the author of numerous addrt:sses, papers, and reports, relating 
particularly to highway improvement and city planning. 

He is a trustee of the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, and a mem- 
ber of the American Society of Civil Engineers rnd of a number of im- 
portant technical organizations centering in New York City ; and in four 
of these he has held the office of President. 

Editors. 



379 



THE ENGINEER AS A PROFESSIONAL MAN. 

By 

Dr. Nels'on Peter Lewis. 

If the importance of a profession is to be judged by the number 
of those engaged in or preparing for it, by the number of institutions 
offering courses leading to it, or by increase in the facihties and equip- 
ment needed for giving such courses, it would not be extravagant 
to say that the engineering profession in its several branches has 
lately assumed the first rank in this country. It is realized that the 
development of our material resources is dependent in a large degree 
upon engineers or upon men with engineering training. A quarter of 
a century ago it is probable that a majority of the graduates of our 
engineering schools looked for their first practical experience to the 
work of railway construction, or that incidental thereto, which was 
very active at that time and which reached its climax in 1887, with a 
record of 12,878 miles of steam railway built during that year. The 
country having become fairly well supplied with railways, and the 
products of field, forest, and mine having been brought within reach 
of the consumer, the shipper, and the manufacturer, there succeeded 
an era of internal development, of betterment, of reclamation, and of 
conservation which is how well under way and which will doubtless 
continue for many years. The development of power, its conversion 
and transmission ; increased facilities for transportation ; the reclam- 
ation of arid lands through irrigation involving great impounding 
reservoirs and distributing ditches; the improvement of existing and 
the construction of new waterways; the development of our mineral 
resources ; the creation of manufacturing plants and of great railway 
and shipping terminals; the increasing use of steel and concrete in 
building construction, — offer splendid opportunities for the engineer. 
There has lately been a marked tendency among all civilized people 
to concentrate in cities, a tendency which has caused surprise and which 
to many appears somewhat alarming. We are inclined to think of 
this tendency as especially noticeable in the United States, but such is 
not the case. On the other hand, it is a world movement. A compari- 
son of the growth from 1889 to 1900 of six German and six American 
cities shows surprising results. The cities of each country were selected 
at random, and the population of each pair was about the same in 1880. 

381 



382 ENGINEER AS A PROFESSIONAL MAN. 

They are: Cincinnati and Breslau, Buffalo and Cologne, New Orleans 
and Dresden, Louisville and Hanover, Providence and Nuremberg, 
Rochester and Chemnitz. Not only has the German city in every in- 
stance increased more rapidly than the American city of the same size in 
1880, but the lowest excess in the rate of increase is found to have been 
23% in the gain of Cologne over that of Buffalo, while in two instances 
the increase in population of the German city has been 140% greater 
than that of the corresponding American city, namely, that of Dresden 
over New Orleans, and of Nuremberg over Providence. 

While this increase in the population of the German cities has 
been most^ remarkable, the same tendency will be found throughout 
all Europe, in Moscow and Warsaw, in Vienna and Buda Pest, in Rome 
and Naples, in Marseilles and Lyons, in Brussels and Antwerp, in Rot- 
terdam and Amsterdam, in Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow, and 
Belfast ; while in the New World to the south of us we see the same 
thing in Mexico, Rio Janerio, and Buenos Ayres. 

Reference has been made to the anxiety manifested in some quar- 
ters of this concentration of population in large cities. It is often point- 
ed out that many, if not most, of the conspicuously successful men have 
come from the farms, and the cry has gone out — ''Back to the farms 
if we would save our civilization." . It is true that a large proportion 
of our successful men have come from the farms, but it is in the great 
cities that they have found the opportunities of which they have been 
able to avail themselves by reason of the habits of industry, frugality, 
and self denial VN^hich they learned on the farms. Many of these men, 
after having attained success, are going back to their old homes with a 
new realization of their responsibility to their fellows. Better facilities 
for communication with centres of population, the distribution of scien- 
tific information concerning improved methods of agriculture, the gen- 
eral use of the telephone and the automobile, are greatly improving the 
conditions in the rural districts, but there will be no abatement of the 
growth of the cities. It is there that the great social and economic 
problems of the age must be worked out, and from them will emanate 
the uplifting influences which will make the world better. 

The solution of the physical problems presented by this great 
urban development will call for the highest skill and the most intel- 
ligent effort of the engineer. Who is to give our cities the physical 
aspect which will correspond with the important part they are to play 
in the national life? The architect who will design buildings, giving 
them beauty and dignity? Yes, but before him must come the engineer 
who will create such a plan that the buildings of the architect may be 



LEWIS. 383 

seen to advantage. What would Washington have been without its 
L'Enfant, Paris without its Haussmann? 

Who is to make our cities healthful, our brothers of the medical 
profession? They will combat disease and relieve suffering, but pub- 
lic health depends not upon the physician, but upon the man who is 
responsible for a pure and wholesome water supply, for an adequate 
system of drainage, and for such care, disposition, or treatment of the 
wastes of a city that they will not menace the health of its own people 
or of those of other cities. Comfort and decency depend upon the 
proper cleansing of streets and disposal of household wastes without 
unnecessary offense. It was once thought that anyone with fair ex- 
ecutive ability and the proper political affiliations could satisfactorily 
do work of this kind, but the people who pay taxes and expect results 
are no longer satisfied with such an arrangement. The disposition or 
destruction of wastes now calls for expert knowledge, and more and 
more we find technically trained men entrusted with such work. 

The people of our great cities must be taught the duty they owe 
to the state, the municipality, and their fellows, and there are many 
great preachers and teachers to show them this duty both by precept 
and example. But will the people listen and profit by this teaching 
when they return to homes in narrow, dark streets, to squalid tene- 
ments where human beings are herded together in such a manner that 
decent living and intelligent citizenship are well nigh impossible? The 
gospel of light and air, of sanitary housing and clean streets will be more 
effective with the denizens of the slums than any other kind of preach- 
ing. 

No human being can be healthy and moral if he has not some 
opportunity for recreation. Parks and playgrounds are therefore nec- 
essary. You may say that this involves simply a selection of park 
areas and a sufficient expenditure for their acquisition and improve- 
ment. True, if our parks are to be laid out in that way our choice 
will be restricted to such sites as are available, while in order to supply 
breathing spaces in densely built up sections, valuable improvements 
must be destroyed at enormous expense. Suppose, on the other hand, 
our park reservations are included in the original city plan with due 
regard for their natural beauty and their accessibility, how much more 
satisfactorily will be the result and how much expense will be saved! 

Our cities require ease of transportation by horse-drawn or . self- 
propelled vehicles and by railways. If the city is a port, provision 
must be made for such adequate wharves and piers with railroad con- 
nections as will attract and retain commerce. Not only the planning 
and construction of these various improvements that go to make up 



384 ENGINEER AS A PROFESSIONAL MAN. 

the modern city, but the administration of the departments and bureaus 
controlling them are becoming more and more completely delegated to 
the engineer. A former Mayor of the City of New York in testifying 
before a legislative committee made the statement that if he were to 
be confined in his selection of heads of Departments to men who could 
assume their duties and be prepared at once to administer the work of 
the several Departments efficiently, without devoting a considerable part 
of their term of office to learning what was expected of them, he would 
be obliged in a large proportion of cases to name civil engineers. 

It needs no argument beyond a mere recital of the facts to show 
that abundant opportunities await men of technical training who will 
rise to the occasion. 

What sort of training is best calculated to produce engineers who 
will be capable of assuming and satisfactorily performing the various 
duties which have been hinted at rather than enumerated? There 
are characteristics which are sometimes due to very early training or 
even to heredity, while they also may be acquired or developed through 
collegiate education. It is difficult to name those which are of peculiar 
value to the engineer and which should be the special objects of his 
training, but there are some to which particular importance may be 
attached, and among these I would lay special emphasis upon the 
following : 

Industry, intelligent application, accuracy both in work and ex- 
pression, self reliance, tactfulness, integrity. 

These are all qualities which every professional man hopes to 
possess or acquire. Not one of them will he consider unimportant or 
even non-essential, but combined they spell success, — they are a guaran- 
tee of achievement. For their attainment the ordinary course in college 
or technical school will not suffice. Some of them are to be acquired 
only in the harder school of life and through intimate contact with one's^ 
fellows. But let us be somewhat more precise in our definitions and 
take the time to consider what each one of them means and to realize 
its importance. The necessity of industry is so important that it is 
scarcely worthy of emphasis. No success can be achieved without it. 
The world's prizes do not go to the drones and the laggards, but to 
those who devote their best energies and abilities to the tasks before 
them, whether they be great and calculated to arouse enthusiasm or 
apparently unimportant and suggest drudgery. 

A fair degree of industry is essential successfully to complete the 
course in a modern engineering school. Without it the student knows 
that he cannot secure the coveted degree, but when the young graduate 
gets his first position it will soon be apparent whether or not he is in- 



LEWIS. 385 

dustrious from habit. If he is content to render the least service pos- 
sible to enable him to secure his monthly salary check, he is not in- 
dustrious ; it will not take his employer long to discover the fact, and his 
promotion will be slow. It is not quixotic to say that a young man 
should consider that day ill spent in which he has not rendered to his 
employer service of a value greater than the pay which he is to re- 
ceive. 

But mere dogged application will not lead to the greatest success 
unless combined with intelligent application, which is nothing more 
nor less than industry guided by good judgment and aided by a sense 
of proportion or perspective. 

To fritter away one's time and exhaust one's energies over unim- 
portant details that a subordinate can do just as well, is neither wise nor 
commendable. Do not interpret this as encouragement of indifference 
to minor details. Every young engineer at the beginning of his career 
must expect to do his full share of seemingly trivial things, but when 
the time comes for him to assume greater responsibilities he should look 
at them in a broader way. This does not mean that the accuracy of 
the work of subordinates should be taken for granted, but there are 
other ways of determining this than doing it all over again one's self. 
When the accuracy and reliability of subordinates have been demon- 
strated, their results can be accepted as the foundation upon which more 
important conclusions may be predicated. 

There are emergencies when concentrated effort continued through 
day and night almost to the point of exhaustion are required to ac- 
complish important results, and the resiliency of youth is such that a 
moderate rest will restore the faculties to their normal condition, 
but habitual intemperance in work is sometimes as injurious as other 
excesses. When the brain is tired and fails to respond, it is time for 
recreation and diversion. There are some men who boast that tliey 
have never taken a vacation, but if the amount and quality of their 
work were carefully estimated, it would probably appear that it would 
have been better both for themselves and their employers if they had 
done so. 

Inaccuracy is, perhaps, the greatest sin next to dishonesty, of 
which the engineer is capable. Its results are waste of money, dan- 
ger, accident, and frequently loss of life. Failing bridges, broken 
dams, collapsed buildings, are likely to follow the misplacing of a 
decimal point or the omission of some essential In computation. But 
accuracy in calculation or in execution is not sufficient to avoid trouble. 
Accuracy in expressing conclusions, clearness in recommendations, and 
precision in describing the work to be done in contract and specification. 



386 ENGINEER AS A PROFESSIONAL MAN. 

are of the utmost importance. Serious loss and an enormous .amount 
of litigation result from looseness and lack of clearness in description of 
the work to be done and the relative obligations to be assumed by. own- 
er and contractor in the specifications commonly prepared by engineers 
and architects. Purely technical training may result in accurate think- 
ing through the medium of formulae and in a proper regard for inexor- 
able natural laws, but it will not give facility of expression in language 
which cannot be misunderstood. This is an accomplishment which can 
only be acquired by what are known as the culture studies and by more 
or less familiarity with good literature. A curriculum which is con- 
spicuous by the absence of such culture courses, or which has not been 
preceded by a fairly liberal training is not likely to produce the kind 
of engineers we are endeavoring to describe. 

Self-Reliance. This does not mean self-satisfaction or self-con- 
ceit, nor does it imply unwillingness to take advice or profit by the 
opinions and experiences of others. It means that after having se- 
cured the available information upon the subject under consideration, 
after being assured as to the soundness of theory and having tested 
the accuracy of calculation, one's conclusions should be defended with 
confidence and enthusiasm. It means, further, that when in trouble 
the first thing to do is not to call for help, but to get oneself out of 
his trouble as quickly as possible. The man who does not believe in 
himself and in the soundness of his theories and conclusions will find 
it difficult to induce others to accept them. 

One of the most valuable assets in any professional or business 
career is tactfulness, and to no one is it of greater value than to the 
engineer. His theory may be all right, his plans may be excellent, 
his projects may be well conceived and carefully thought out, but it 
may be presented in such a way that it will not appeal to a superior 
officer, a commission, or a board of directors. Natural difficulties may 
be overcome by technical skill or by sheer force of energy and persis- 
tence, but prejudices and antagonisms may be aroused which will prove 
insurmountable. In dealing with men as with nature, it is well to follow 
the lines of least resistance. If incredulity be met with scorn, if irrele- 
vant questions be ignored or answered with contempt, if objection be 
treated with impatience, the best matured plans are apt to come to 
naught. It is always possible to make concessions with respect to non- 
essentials which the layman is frequently unable to distinguish from 
essentials ; in fact, it may sometimes be well to have a supply of non- 
essentials to trade with. When a moral principle is involved, the man 
who will stand or fall by it is always to be commended, and the instances 
are rare in which he will not win. But it often happens that we can- 



LEWIS. 387 

not get all that we would like, and in such cases it is well to get the 
best we can under the circumstances. You may say that the man who 
will do this is an opportunist. Well, most men who attain results are 
opportunists. In fact, it may be said that the tactful man is court- 
eous, considerate of others' opinions and even of their prejudices, is 
willing to go around rather than through an obstacle, and is an oppor- 
tunist. 

The qualities which we have considered may be thought enough 
to insure success, but to make success substantial and well worth 
attainment, one other is necessary, and that is integrity. Not honesty 
which is merely good policy, not a relative degree of rectitude which is 
measured by that of other professional or business men, but a devotion 
to the highest ideals of truth, honor, and justice. 

The engineer is often, yes, usually, called upon to safeguard the 
interests of a client which may be an individual, a business or public 
service corporation, a state or a municipality, and also to act in a 
judicial capacity between his client and the contractor. It matters 
not from which of the parties to the contract he receives his compen- 
sation, his duty is to decide questions in dispute with entire fairness 
and equity to both. This is often a trying position, and the man who 
occupies it is sometimes subjected to great temptations and subtle 
influences which are not easily recognized. Only a keen sense of 
honor and a realization of his responsibility will guide a man aright under 
such circumstances. 

The engineering profession is an exacting one ; he who follows it 
deals with natural laws, the infraction of which means disaster; his 
deductions must be based upon premises which are incontrovertible and 
which can lead to but one conclusion ; polemics and casuistry have no 
place in his mental equipment. His moral nature should reflect his 
mental habits, and in all his relations there should be no compromise be- 
tween truth and falsehood, — ^between uprightness and moral obliquity. 
You may say that the professional standard implied by the qualities and 
habits just enumerated is very high and beyond the reach of most men. 
It is high but it is not beyond the reach of any man who is determined 
to attain it. 

We have considered only those qualities which most intimately re- 
late to one's duty to himself,. his fellows, and his profession. But for the 
man who would most effectively serve the public and who would em- 
phasize the dignity and importance of his profession, still more is neces- 
sary. There is a feeling all too common that the work of the engineer 
is strictly utilitarian, and that if his designs are structurally sound 
there is little need for him to concern himself with artistic, appearance, 



24. 



388 ENGINEER AS A PROFESSIONAL MAN. 

— that if his cHent wants beauty he can go to an architect or a specialist 
in landscape work. The engineer with the liberal training, the import- 
ance of which it has been my purpose to emphasize, will readily ap- 
preciate the necessity of making his work as attractive in appearance 
as is consistent with utility and economy. Symmetry of form, harmony 
of color, and consistency in detail, do not necessarily involve additional 
expense. The American people are coming to realize that beauty is a 
valuable asset. In this respect the Latin races have been far ahead of 
us, while the Germans, in their city planning and embellishment, have 
lately taken, perhaps, the first rank. A checkerboard city plan, with no 
emphasis laid upon important streets, and entirely lacking in eligible 
sites for public buildings, as is inevitable in such a plan, would not be 
considered in a European city, and all over this country there is now 
being manifested a keen desire to correct our mistakes in city planning 
and to add at enormous expense the dignified thoroughfares and open 
places which were omitted when the cities were laid out. You are doubt- 
less familiar with the ambitious plans of San Francisco, Chicago, Cleve- 
land, and other cities to substitute something dignified and beautiful for 
what is now distinctly commonplace. In one of these cities the plans 
are well on the way to realization. The engineer must train his own 
taste in such matters, and he should also be willing and anxious to 
collaborate with the architect and the artist in order to produce satis- 
factory results. 

Plutarch tells us that when the Athenians protested that Pericles 
was squandering the public money in his efforts to beautify their city, 
he replied: "Since it is so, let the cost not go to your account, but 
to mine, and let the inscriptions upon the buildings stand in my name." 
At this they cried aloud, bidding him to spend on and lay out what he 
thought fit from the public purse and to spare no cost till all were 
finished. These old Greeks had an appreciation of the value of beauty to 
their city which we of the Anglo-Saxon race and traditions have been 
slow to realize. A French writer has put this in epigrammatic form 
when he said: "The beautiful is often more useful than the useful.'' 
This acknowledgment of the greater appreciation of artistic value 
shown by the Europeans, and of the more satisfactory results of their 
city planning must not be construed as advice that we should imitate 
them and try to improve our cities by destroying wdiat we have and 
making them over in conformity with Old World models. My plea 
is that the engineers who are charged with the duty of planning our 
new and extending our present cities see to it that the necessity for this 
costly work of destruction and reconstruction is avoided. 



LEWIS. 389 

Proper equipment for the highest usefulness in the engineering 
profession depends in large degree upon the use a young man makes 
of his opportunities during his professional course. There are a 
great number of excellent technical schools in this country, and the 
work done in some of them is doubtless more effective than that in others ; 
but after all, the results depend chiefly upon the man himself. I want, 
however, to emphasize the special advantages of a small institution 
such as this, where the student has a better opportunity to gain that 
inspiration from the teacher which close personal contact is likely to 
promote. Elaborate equipment and large endowment are not every- 
thing; in fact, they are but a poor substitute for the small classroom 
unit and the resourcefulness which comes from the necessity of work- 
ing things out for oneself without the aid of too much demonstration. 

Permit me also to caution both teacher and student against the 
tendency to undergraduate specialization which has lately been shown 
in some of our engineering schools. There is a temptation so to 
mould one's course as to fit him for the greatest earning capacity im- 
mediately after graduation. Most of you will follow some special line 
of engineering work. What that is to be will depend largely upon 
circumstances, opportunity, or even environment. Students should not 
restrict their future usefulness by a one-sided preparation for a par- 
ticular kind of work. It is true that their earning power might be some- 
what greater during the first few years after graduation, but the man 
who is thoroughly trained in the fundamentals of engineering education 
will find himself far better able to avail of the opportunities which may 
come to him. 

Thorough preparation is essential to one who would gain the 
maximum of benefit from his professional course. An academic de- 
gree is not within reach of most engineering students, but if by any 
sacrifice of time and money it can be attained, it will be of enormous 
value. If it is out of the question, and the student has not had the 
advantage of a fairly liberal preliminary training, then my advice is 
to avoid the institution whose course is entirely technical, with no 
place for culture studies. There was a time, not many years ago. 
when engineering was scarcely considered as a profession, when the 
engineer was thought to be little more than an educated mechanic. 
That time has passed; engineering is now recognized as the great 
creative profession, and its dignity and emoluments have correspond- 
ingly increased. Let us insist that it also be classed as one of the 
learned professions. 

Members of the Graduating Class: I have endeavored to em- 
phasize the importance and dignity of the engineering profession and 



390 ENGINEER AS A PROFESSIONAL MAN. 

the prominent part which the engineer must play in the further de- 
velopment of this country. I congratulate you that you have chosen 
this profession for your own. You have probably received a great 
deal of advice, especially during the last few days. All of it has 
doubtless been good; much of it you will forget; some of it you will 
remember. I am not here to preach to you, and yet I will venture a 
few personal words in conclusion. 

You have done faithful work in this Institution and are about to 
be rewarded by receiving its degree. This does not mean that you 
are now engineers. It means that you have received such training 
that by intelligent application of what you have here learned you may 
soon become engineers. Your education is not completed, it has only 
begun. Thus far it has been secured at the expense of parents or 
other relatives ; possibly some of you have paid for most of it your- 
selves. See to it that it is not completed at the expense of your em- 
ployers or clients. You will doubtless make some mistakes and will 
profit by them, but he is fortunate who is able to profit by the mistakes 
of others as well as his own. It will be well for you to keep in touch 
with your professional brethren, to identify yourselves with profes- 
sional organizations, and to make yourselves familiar with current 
professional literature, but do not limit your acquaintance to engineers 
or your reading to engineering books and periodicals. 

If you should enter the public service, do not think that influence 
will take the place of industry and honest endeavor. The day of the 
political engineer has passed. You will be called upon to exercise 
functions which are judicial in their nature; strive to be absolutely 
fair and just. Do not deceive others, do not let others deceive you, 
and do not deceive yourselves. Your profession is an intensely prac- 
tical one, but there is every reason why the engineer should be an 
idealist, provided he is not a doctrinaire. 

Be loyal to your profession, loyal to your Alma Mater, loyal to your 
God, and you will attain true success. Such success I wish you all. 



THE ENGINEER AND THE COMMUNITY. 

By 
Dr. William McClellan. 

Most of Dr. McClellan's address, which was delivered in 1909 at 
the Annual Commencement of the Thomas S. Clarkson Memorial School 
of Technology, is in the main similar to other commencement addresses 
herein given; but his conclusion deals with a subject that needs empha- 
sizing, hence it has been reproduced. 

Dr. McClellan was educated at the University of Pennsylvania, 
where he received the degrees of B. S. and Ph. D. For several years 
after graduation he did all kinds of street railway engineering for the 
Philadelphia Rapid Transit Company ; and in 1905 he went to New York 
City to work with Westinghouse, Church, Kerr, and Company. 

He is now located in New York, where he holds the positions of Vice 
President of the Campion-McClellan Company, established in 1907 to 
do general engineering and construction work for industrial and electri- 
cal corporations ; President of the McClellan-Lines Company, established 
in 1910 for the manufacture of mechanical devices ; and Consulting En- 
gineer for the Public Service Commission of the Second District of the 
State of New York. 

Editors. 



391 



THE ENGINEER AND THE COMMUNITY. 

By 
Dr. William McClellan. 



* * * * * * * It is important therefore, if 

we are to rise to the full dignity of our profession and exercise in the 
community the greatest possible influence, that we recognize our re- 
sponsibilities. We must understand that we make our impression on the 
community not in some but in all our activities, — our walk, our clubs, 
our societies, our diversions, our expressed opinions, and our inter 
views. We must remember that while working with materials we are 
working for men. We must understand that while called upon to ex- 
amine details carefully we must at all times discard trivialities. We must 
learn to cultivate that chief faculty of a really great man, his ability to 
distinguish the essential from the non-essential. We must learn especially 
to keep the tools of our profession out of sight, and sharpen them in 
private, or putting it differently, let us dwell more on the things we do 
and their effects rather than on the beauty of the technicalities in- 
volved. 

We are expected to have opinions, and must be able to express 
them. Opinions, however, are not manufactured off hand, but are the re- 
sult of thinking. If the opinions are to be broad and comprehensive, 
they can only be so as a result of continuous broad thinking. If they 
are to be expressed forcibly and intelligently, it can only be done be- 
cause we have practiced this art consistently. Get rid of the idea so 
prevalent among engineers that talkers are not doers. This is all wrong, 
and history proves it, but when you do talk say something, and only 
after proper consideration. 

All this is comprehended in the general direction. Be an EN- 
GINEER, without adjectives, without limitations, broad, well rounded, 
far beyond the millwright stage. Realize the full meaning of the title 
and work towards it. Glory in it, and strive for the time when you 
can honestly bear it. Some engineers have done this and they are not 
complaining about recognition by the community. It knows their names, 
and is proud of them. 

393 



THE HUMAN SIDE OF A MINING ENGINEER'S LIFE. 

By 
Edmund B. Kirby, E. M. 

This address was delivered to the graduating class of 1908 at the 
School of Mines and Metallurgy of the Missouri State University. It is 
reproduced in part, not merely because of its undoubted excellence, but 
also to give representation to the line of mining engineering. 

Mr. Kirby graduated at Washington University in 1884, taking the 
degree of E. M. He started his practical work in Arizona and Colorado 
as assayer and chemist at various plants, then took a position as Superin- 
tendent of the Philadelphia Smelting and Refining Company and built 
their smelting plant at Pueblo, Colorado; next he was Superintendent of 
the Russell Process Silver Lixiviation Mill at Aspen, Colorado, after 
which he began a private practice as Consulting Mining Engineer and 
Metallurgist with headquarters in Denver. Then he occupied for two 
years the chair of Mining and Metallurgy in the State School of Mines at 
Golden, Colorado, and at the same time did consulting work in various 
parts of the state. 

Next we find him as General Manager of the War Eagle and Centre 
Star Mining Companies at Rossland, British Columbia; then as Con- 
sulting Engineer in Nevada ; then as Manager of the Federal Land Com- 
pany at Flat River, Missouri, for the American Smelters Securities Com- 
pany; and finally as Consulting Mining Engineer and Metallurgist in St. 
Louis, Missouri. 

Mr. Kirby is a member of the Mining and Metallurgical Society of 
America^ the American Institute of Mining Engineers, The Canadian 
Mining Institute, and the Colorado Scientific Society. 

Editors. 



395 



THE HUMAN SIDE OF A MINING ENGINEER'S LIFE. 

By 
f. Edmund B. Kirby, E. M. 

You have now reached the time when . the care and sacrifices of 
your families are at an end, when faithful instructors have completed 
their labors, when the State has performed its duty. It is now in 
order for you to stand upon your own feet and to go your own way. 

You are assembled here today to say farewell and to receive a few 
directions about the trail ahead. At such a moment we need no words 
from you to know the inquiry in Qvery mind ''Which way lies success 
for me?" To this question so old and yet so new, the answer must ever 
be the same — ''No man knows." We can, however, tell you where the 
chances are best and the dangers least. We can give pointers on equip- 
ment and a few friendly suggestions which will aid your journey. 

So, first of all I say to you, that the way is long and hard. It 
leads over rough mountains and through treacherous swamps, and, dis- 
appearing, leaves you to break your own trail. Therefore, travel light. 
Look first to your load. Study the handicap which nature and fortune 
have placed upon you. So far you have not been responsible for this, 
but henceforth you are. Give it thought and care and little by little, by 
that persistent effort which never fails, you may throw it off and travel 
free. 

And next, I would call your attention not to the Technical, but to 
the Human field before you. I do this, because it is so often neglected 
by mining engineers, and because this neglect is so apt to bring delay, 
disappointment, or failure. The special work of an engineer is to apply 
the discoveries and methods of science to the practical business of the 
world. Often he forgets how many-sided a man must be for this end. 
and then, enthusiastic and absorbed in technical details, he overlooks the 
fundamental requirements of life. 

I urge you, therefore, not to forget that the world is made up of 
things and of folks, and nine-tenths of your business is going to be 
with folks. Science is a fascinating but exacting goddess, and she 
brooks no rivals. She weaves a mystic spell about her devotees and 
normal Human motives disappear. The love of gold, the dream of 
power, the hunger for social position, are all forgotten. They find 
themselves impelled by strange, mysterious forces, unknown to the 



397 



398 MINING ENGINEER'S LIFE. 

multitude, and by themselves but dimly understood. They pursue truth 
for truth's sake. They discover realities through the insatiable desire 
to know. Enthralled by the passion for exploration and discovery, 
they give profound intellectual effort, they expend lives of unsparing 
labor for a mere existence, often without the aid of recognition or of 
sympathy. Such men live apart and in a higher world. 

The enthusiasm kindled in the student's heart by contact with the 
scientific spirit can never diie out. It is and must always be the inspira- 
tion of the mining engineer. But his own life work is of a different 
nature — 'it is most sternly practical. It is the production of wealth 
from the forces and materials of nature. It leads out of the library and 
the laboratory, and into the busy world of men and affairs. Year by 
year it calls more and more, not for the intense and narrow specialist, 
but for many-sided ability, for the., well-balanced man. The practical 
business of an engineer seldom requires profound technical knowledge, 
but it does demand a working knowledge of men and skill in dealing 
with them. He can often prosper without the former, but without the 
latter his chances are small. The special word I bring you today, 
therefore, is to seek for success among Human beings, and throw off 
the personal defects which handicap you in the world of men and 
women. 

This school has done what it could for your equipment. It has 
performed the duty for which it was created; it has awakened and de- 
veloped your intellect; it has acquainted you with the methods and re- 
sources of science and of your profession. You represent the con- 
scientious labor of earnest men who have brought you all to a certain 
standard of mental and technical equipment. But your social equip- 
ment, that combination of personal qualities which is to help or hinder 
your career, has been left to chance. Fortune has bestowed upon you 
the accumulated result of individual heredity, of early associations and 
of other environments, and in no two men is this result alike. The only 
common training has been that due to your own student life, together 
for four years. This has knocked off corners and rubbed down rough 
places, and is generally recognized as one of the chief objects of a col- 
lege education. So, as you stand today, varying in these personal quali- 
ties, I call your attention to the fact that henceforth you are your own 
architects and can re-construct as you please. To youth all things are 
possible, and you can, if you really wish it, change these qualities in 
any way you like. 

You will gradually learn what is wanted. The business world is 
not interested in the details of your education. It is generally under- 
stood that the completion of a course like yours indicates that the man 



KIRBY. 399 

has made good in his first test, that he has carried through successfully 
his first serious undertaking. This gives promise for the future, and 
the fact of technical training assures ease in breaking a new man into 
the business. But you do not yet know that the questions an employer 
asks are merely these: Has he good sense above the average? What 
are his personal bearing and address? 

You will find that a diploma is of little interest to others, but a 
likeable personality is a passport, good for life and in all countries. 
In time you are to discover that tact and diplomacy solve more prob- 
lems than engineering formulas; that a memory for names and faces 
will help you more than one for minerals and rocks. Sooner or later 
you will know that good sense, that ability to decide which of any two 
things is the more important, is an asset beyond price. You will awake 
to the fact that valuable as is skill in the higher mathematics, it will 
never push you to the front like the ability to write a letter which will 
really do its work. How will you deal with people if not through 
language, that means by which your thought and will may reach the 
consciousness of others, that delicate and subtle medium necessary for 
the most simple affairs of daily life, yet capable under a Master's touch 
of swaying a multitude, of moving the world? How far have you 
learned its use? You have studied the reactions of chemistry, but how 
much have you learned of those subtle human reactions which break 
down indifference and create friendship? 

If your training as engineers has been effective, it has bred in 
you the impulse to search out facts, however unpleasant they may be, 
and to look them squarely in the face. In sorting over your equipment, 
you who do not find yourselves compendiums of all the virtues will 
not be lonesome. You have, moreover, the consolation of knowing that 
anything lacking is yours for the effort, if 3'Ou want it hard enough. 

But you say this wanders from engineering matters. These are 
the winning qualities for all men. I answer ''Quite so, the sucessful 
mining engineer is the successful man." ***** 

* * * * * * * ** * 

And now a few suggestions about your life work. 

There are men who shut themselves up, and out of their inner con- 
sciousness evolve some great work, such as an invention, or a book. 
Occasionally also, men go into the wilderness and discover a mine. 
But such individual play is rare and its chances are small. The real 
business of the world is done by team-work, and you must qualify for 
this. It is done by innumerable bodies of men, each of which is under 
some kind of organization, intended to combine its units into an efficient 
human machine, capable of the business on hand. Now, every such 



400 MINING ENGINEER'S LIFE. 

machine, whether it be a baseball nine, a section gang, the force of a 
great steel-plant, a railway system, or an army, works more or less 
badly. The individuals who compose it, from the general to the private, 
from the business head to the lowest employee, have human weaknesses 
which are much alike, and the results are friction, loose joints, lost mo- 
tion, and sand in the gears. Nevertheless, the outfit goes creaking along, 
and usually gets there, often to its own surprise. 

There are weak points in abundance, not only on the Human, but 
on the Technical side of every business. There is a best way to do each 
operation, from the handling ®f a shovel, up, and it is not always done 
in the best way. Moreover, methods, processes, and machines are con- 
stantly changing, constantly advancing. These two conditions, the im- 
perfection of technical methods, and the faults of Human organization, 
will provide your openings. It is because of them that the world is so 
full of opportunities for men who have the combinations of sound tech- 
nical training and good sense. 

When, therefore, you hold a job, do not waste time in complaints 
and fault finding. You will continually see waste and loss, things which 
are wrong, things which need improvement. Others see them too. If 
you have sense you will notice everything, but will keep your mouth 
shut. Some day your chance will come. Your advice will be asked. 
Some day you will be given charge of a small piece of work, of a few 
men, and may then bring out your ideas by doing this work better and 
more cheaply than the man before you. 

An able man will move up from any job and there are no rules for 
fortune. But in your profession the chances are generally somewhat 
better for those who are able to start as workmen, or in positions close 
to the working force. If the machine of which you are a part is too 
bad, get out, but while you are in any business organization, be loyal 
to it, hold up the hands of those above you, and keep your own work 
as free as possible from the faults you notice elsewhere. 

Your duty now is to get busy. Get into action somewhere, if 
you cannot at once find work in the line desired, take anything tempo- 
rarily. Concentrate yourself upon your job until sure that you are 
holding it down, and then turn your attention to other men and other 
work. Beyond this you will play the game as fortune and your own will 
dictate. 

Play it straight. This may sound easy to you, fresh from the 
wholesome influences of your homes and the fair-play of boy democracy, 
but in years to come, when the passions of the fierce struggle take 
hold of you, when copy book maxims fail, when you see men around you 
winning safety, fortune, and power by unscrupulous methods, unless 



KIRBY. 401 

you have higher motives for honesty than the belief that it generall> 
pays, you are quite likely to resign from the Straight Men's Association. 
It is gratifying to be able to tell you that you will find your profession 
much above the average in its percentage of clean men. 

It may sometime be of service to know that to be fired from a 
job is often the best thing that can happen to a man, if he is really 
built of the right stuff. It galvanizes him into life, jerks him out of a 
rut, tests his own resources, and makes him start fresh in new surround- 
ings and with new people. 

Throughout your career you will make errors and have occasional 
bad falls. Avoid the delusion that such occurrences are fatal. No 
error is serious, unless you fail to learn its lesson, or allow it to weaken 
your courage. Some of the most successful men I have known had 
failed so many times that they stopped remembering. Because they 
stopped, they succeeded. If by the caprice of fortune, any of you should 
eventually meet with disappointment, if you should fail to realize your 
hopes and ambitions, you will, by that time, have learned that your only 
failure has been to escape the common lot of man. You will, by that 
time, understand the Arizona epitaph, "Life ain't in holding a good hand, 
but in playing a poor one well." 

Under normal conditions your status will long be simply that of the 
Human animal, struggling for the existence of self and family, differing 
from other animals only in the complexity of itself, its environment, and 
its struggle. This struggle for existence is your first duty, and may 
long demand your whole attention. But for those of you who respond 
to the spirit of the age, the time should come, by middle life if at all, 
when your eyes will be lifted from the details of self seeking. You 
will suddenly become conscious of the great Human organism of which 
you are a part and of your relations to it. You will have attained in- 
telligence. Thenceforth a part of the awakening soul of humanity, you 
will see through the surface and into the injustice and unhappiness of 
the world around you. When this awakening comes, with the new 
duties it imposes upon your conscience, follow them. Choose what line 
of action you please, but do something. You may elect either to pick 
up wounded, or to get into the fighting line somewhere, but get busy. 
Join those who are trying to make the world a decent place to live in. 

Your destinies will be determined by the mingled influences of 
ability, hard work, and pure luck. Capricious fortune will deal kindly 
with some of you and roughly with others. Some of you will reach 
wealth and power, others will not. As your head swells with success, 
do not forget how much of it is due to chance. Do not forget a 
struggling classmate. In a few months the petty differences and 



402 MINING ENGINEER'S LIFE. 

jealousies of your college life will have passed into oblivion, but the 
man who has rubbed shoulders with you through that experience has 
a grip and pass- word that you cannot forget. Throughout the world, 
among the yellow, the brown, the black, and the white, it is the law that 
the call of a comrade must be heard. 

And now, gentlemen of the Class of 1908, in behalf of the Profes- 
sion of Mining Engineers, I welcome you to its ranks. No profession 
is more important, none has a brighter future. It is your special 
work to bring forth the hidden treasures of the earth, and to convert 
them to the use of man. Yours is the mother of industries. Where 
mines are opened, there the wilderness blossoms into towns, railways, 
agriculture, manufactures, homes, and all the varied forms of civilized 
life. Yours is the creative work of pioneers, and your field is the 
world. Within a few years you will be scattered from the east to the 
west, from the tropics to the frozen regions of the north. Your duties 
lead you to the forest, to the mountains, and upon the desert. You are 
to labor in the roar of machinery, in the smoke of furnace-fires, and in 
the cities of candle-light. In time you are to become leaders of industry 
in distant places, to be entrusted with power over men under many skies. 
Wherever this may be, whether in the centers of our American civiliza- 
tion, or among strange peoples and amid strange tongues, the State of 
Missouri expects you to bring honor to her name. Our profession looks 
to you to uphold and to advance its standards. 



SUCCESS. 

By 

Dr. M. E. Cooley. 

Mortimer E. Cooley was born in Canandaigua, New York, March 28, 
1855, and lived on a farm till his nineteenth year. His early education 
was secured in a district school and later at the Canandaigua Academy, 
noted in those days for the thoroughness of its work. For two years he 
taught in a district school, the money thus earned serving to pay his 
tuition at the Academy. He used to walk daily to and from the Acad- 
emy, distant from his residence three and a half miles, studying en route, 
as no time was available at home. 

In the summer of 1874 he went to Annapolis on his own initiative, 
without assistance or influence of any kind, and took the entrance 
examination for the U. S. Military Academy, coming out number seven 
among seventy or more applicants. At the Academy he captained the 
class crew for two years, rowing in one regatta. He also excelled in 
fencing and broad-swords, of which he was very fond. He graduated 
seventh in his class in June, 1878. 

He served first on the U. S. S. Quinnebaug on the Mediterranean, 
and was afterwards transferred to the U. S. S. Alliance of the Atlantic 
Squadron. In March, 1881, he was ordered to duty in the Bureau of 
Steam Engineering at Washington, and in August of the same year he 
was sent on detached duty by the Navy Department to Ann Arbor for a 
three years' detail to teach mechanical engineering at the University of 
Michigan. By special request of the Board of Regents, this detail was 
extended another year ; at the expiration of which time, by the pressing 
invitation of the President and the Board of Regents of the University, 
he resigned from the Navy and accepted the chair of Mechanical Engi- 
neering, which he has continued to occupy to the present time. Since 
1905 he has been Dean of the Engineering Department. To Dr. Cooley's 
good work are greatly due the rapid enlargement of the University and 
the success of its engineering graduates. 

In addition to his scholastic duties, Dr. Cooley finds time for pro- 
fessional work ; and he is often called upon to act as consulting engineer 
on projects and constructions in his specialty. Again, he has taken time 
to devote to municipal politics, having been President of the City Com- 
mon Council of Ann Arbor for two terms. 

403 



25. 



404 SUCCESS. 

Dr. Ccoley is a member of numerous engineering and scientific so- 
cieties, and has held office in some of them. 

His busy days have left him little time for literary work other than 
college lectures, although he is frequently called upon for addresses. 

He is a member of the Michigan State Naval Brigade; and he served 
as Chief Engineer on board the U. S. S. Yosemite during the Spanish- 
American war and later at the League Island Navy Yard. He received 
as a token of appreciation of his naval services a silver medal from the 
City of Ann Arbor, a bronze medal from Detroit, and a bronze medal 
from the State of Michigan. He also received from the U. S. Govern- 
ment both the Service Medal and the Sampson Medal. 

He received from the University of Michigan the honorary degree 
of Mechanical Engineer in 1885, from the Michigan Agricultural Col- 
.lege the degree of Doctor of Laws in 1907, and from the University of 
Nebraska the degree of Doctor of Engineering in 1911. 

In view of such a record. Dr. Cooley is certainly well qualified to 
write upon the subject of ''Success," and his dicta thereon ought to carry 
conviction. His thrilling words in this address should arouse the en- 
thusiasm of every young man who reads them and develop in him worthy 
aspirations of the highest order. 

Editors. 



SUCCESS. 

By 

Dr. M. E. Cooley. 

It has occurred to me that I could do no better in this my final 
word to you than to try to answer a question which each and every 
one of you has asked himself, or should ask himself ; viz. How best 
can I succeed in my chosen field of work? What should I do to make 
of myself the greatest success? It is not an easy question to answer, 
for, like many an algebraic problem, the unknown quantities are greater 
in number than the equations embracing them. Moreover, it is difficult 
for a young man to see himself as others see him. It would be for- 
tunate indeed if the young man could write down on paper the several 
equations of himself so that he could study them deliberately and then 
apply the principles of mathematics to their solution. The problem 
would be found to embrace such elements as inertia, velocity, accelera- 
tion, momentum, vis viva, and maxima and minima. Indeed a knowl- 
edge of your limitations is of the first importance. The whole problem 
may be stated in two words: Knozv thyself. 

The first and most important question to ask one's self is what did 
God intend I should do in the w^orld's work? Many, if not most failures 
can be charged up to not having learned the answer to that question. 
If on a close analysis of yourself the answer points to something different 
from what you had planned to do, do not hesitate to change, and to 
change at once. For be assured that if you do the work you were in- 
tended for you will make a success of it, and nothing can prevent it. 

It will require courage in many instances to accept the result of 
such an analysis of one's self, but remember the physics of the problem, 
and that as naturally as water runs down hill, and requires power to 
force it up hill, so with you in your work — if selected with regard to 
your fitness, success will flow readily, and if not, power will be con- 
tinually required to bring about success. 

A young man was graduated from this University in engineering 
in 1905. He came here off a farm and helped himself through col- 
lege by work. He applied himself faithfully to his chosen profession 
for nearly five years, and was fairly successful. He paid back the 
money he had borrowed while in college, helped bear some of the ex- 

405 



406 SUCCESS. 

penses at his old home, and saved the rest of his money. He has now 
gone baclc to the farm in the belief that for a man of his temperament 
a greater measure of success could there be obtained than in engineering. 
I know that young man intimately and am sure he has made no mis- 
take. He probably would never have been more than just a good aver- 
age engineer, but he will make a success as a farmer. His education 
has not been wasted. It will be a great comfort to him in the years to 
come; and even if it has done no more for him than to enable him to 
settle the one great question, it was amply justified. 

It is important to know just what constitutes success. Do not make 
the very common mistake of measuring success by the amount of money 
you can earn. One must have money and enough to live on, but it is 
not the all important thing at the beginning of life. It becomes really 
important only when one's working days are drawing to a close, and 
enough must be had to bridge over the shoals to the deep water where 
the ferryman waits for the final passage. 

In one sense success is the realization of one's ambition. It is 
the achievement of the result of one's plans and labor. It is 
the bringing about of the end sought to be accomplished. We are 
sometimes confused, I think, by the surgeon who says the operation 
was successful notwithstanding that the patient died. In the arts we 
may have its parallel in the case of a machine which produces the result 
intended, but fails because there is not enough demand for the product, 
or because of insufficient raw material to work upon. 

Professor John E. Sweet, the father of the Straight-line Engine, 
used to tell the story of the man who designed and built a most per- 
fect machine for manufacturing pins. It was a wide step in advance 
of the art. A large factory was built in Syracuse, and when completed 
the proprietors went into the market for pin wire. The price quoted 
was so high as to lead to the remark that at such a price the wire " 
cost as much as the finished pins. ''Oh," said the wire merchants, "if 
you would like to have the wire run through the pin machines and 
made into pins, it can be done at the same price." There was a case 
of a success which, owing to other circumstances, resulted in failure. 

Failure itself is often success. Such a case is found in the prob- 
lem which one has attempted to solve expecting a certain result, and in 
the solution of which it was completely demonstrated that no such re- 
sult is possible. It may be quite as much of a success to prove that a 
thing can not be done at all, and it may be more of a success, than to 
achieve a partial result which leads on to the expenditure of more time 
and money with the final result a failure after all. 



COOLEY. 407 

In measuring success in life I would like to start with citizenship. 
Let everyone, first of all, be a good citizen, one who commands the re- 
spect of his neighbors ; one who has ideals and is successful in inspiring 
them in others, so that the community and the home are all better for 
those ideals. A man who conducts himself so as to maintain his self- 
respect is a great success. A man who lives his life within his income 
and meets his obligations is a success. The man who by his example 
creates in his neighbor a desire to emulate him is a success. A man 
who never shirks responsibility, and takes upon himself duties to be 
performed and does his best in performing them is a success. In none 
of these things need money be considered, except sufficient to live on 
and do the things which come to hand. 

I do not mean in my definition of success to omit the truly great 
things, but everyone knows of them, and they need not be mentioned. 
I want you, young men, to go out into the world prepared to credit 
yourselves with being successful, even if you do not acomplish some- 
thing which the world would call truly great. 

One of my old friends wrote me the other day a most interesting 
letter concerning himself. After graduating from the Arts Department 
here at Michigan, he attended an eastern engineering school. He had 
often wondered why he did not get along better in the world. The 
lesson is so valuable and so pertinent to the spirit of my remarks this 
morning that I have taken the liberty of quoting parts of his letter. 
Understand it is from a man now nearly or quite fifty years old. This 
is his letter: 

'Tt has just entered my head that many engineering graduates 
might be the better for a little bit of advice, or perhaps, warning, in 
regard to the necessity of discriminating between knowing how work 
should be done, and knowing how to get it done. I have suffered all 
my life from knowing how things should be done, and leaving them 
for some other fellow to finish ; and it is only within the last year that 
I have had my eyes fully opened to the folly of such a plan of action. 
The extra work of completing the job is nothing to the man who has 
done the preliminary work and laid out the completion of it. But the 
man who actually gets it done and sees that it is finished, who has to 
go over the other man's preliminary work and become familiar with 
the plan for its completion, before he starts, is the one who gets all 
the credit, and moreover he has a right to it. He is the man who gets 
the money anyhow. 

"I never discovered this little secret until I struck the sales end of 
the engineering business, and found that unless I carried my work 
clear through to where I could say, 'Here! Make this, as shown and 



408 SUCCESS. 

specified. Deliver here on such a date, for such a price, to be paid on 
such a date,' the work was not complete and I could claim no credit 
for it, unless, of course, conditions were such that it was a physical 
impossibility for me to get all the data myself and attend to the wind- 
up before it was turned over to the production end. 

"The man who took the trouble to teach me this, is fifteen years 
younger than myself and never saw the inside of a technical school. He 
got his engineering in the shop, and at sea, and was absorbing business 
principles all the time. Eight years ago he was working under me 
at the 'Brown-Hoist' in Cleveland, and when I went to work for him a 
year ago, I found he had been analyzing my character while working 
for me, and had his whole plan prepared for reconstructing the inside 
of my head, and he has done it. I have for some time been puzzled 
to know just what it was that I had learned that made me succeed as 
I had never done before, and have concluded that it is simply this: 
Carry whatever you do to a conclusion, to a point where you can turn 
over something concrete, so that all that remains is simply an order or 
a set of directions, the origin of which need not be investigated, and 
in which there is nothing to be checked. In other words, to do the 
work so that you can tell the next man just what he is to do, and so 
that he* can hold you responsible for what has been done up to the 
time he receives the order. 

"I suppose to many, even very young engineers, these are self-evi- 
dent truths, and to them it might seem childish to put such things 
into words, but from my own unpleasant experience, I suspect that the 
majority of young men are not alive to the matter, and that many do 
not get wise till quite late in life, like myself, and some (a good many) 
never learn it." 

There is one rule I have always tried to follow. It may not add 
much to one's success as measured by money, but it has at least afforded 
a great amount of personal satisfaction. Often when an engineer is 
called upon in a consulting capacity, he is asked to produce a particular 
result, and not infrequently is told that no other result is needed or de- 
sired. This I have as a rule declined to do, and when urged to hurry 
my report have said, "I can not give you my report until it is" finished. 
While you may be satisfied with the work already done, I am not. When 
I am satisfied you also will be satisfied." Work should always be carried 
on to a point which will enable the engineer to advise in light of all 
the things developed during the investigation. That is particularly true 
of a new project. If reported on after only a partial investigation, work 
might have been commenced and money expended along lines found, 
after a complete investigation, to be entirely wrong. 



COOLEY. 409 

It is an engineer's duty to work out problems for his employer which 
will show conclusively all that can be known for and against a pro- 
ject. Moreover it is a duty one owes himself, for one's reputation should 
not be jeopardized. A reputation is an engineer's capital. Properly 
treated it will bear a good return, but ill treatment will not only diminish 
the return but ultimately destroy the principal. Young men, you must 
cherish your reputation above all things, if you are to continue in the 
practice of engineering. 

A young engineer once handed me a letter in which he was ofifered 
a contract in a certain way, and asked "What would you do about it?" 
I replied, "Young man, if you expect to continue in engineering work, 
only one course is possible ; if you plan to go into other work two 
courses are possible." He smiled — and is still engaged in engineering 
work and very successfully. Once an engineer has been purchased, 
it speedily becomes known among salesmen, and sooner or later among 
the engineer's employers, and that is the beginning of the end, if not the 
end itself. 

And now a final word. Be true to your employer. You may not 
agree with him or with his policies. You may dislike him, but as long 
as you work for him and receive his pay, be true to him. Such conduct 
will win for you your employer's respect, and he will aid you when 
you go from his service. Always give your employer ample notice of 
your intention to leave, and give him the true reasons if he asks them. 
Make a sacrifice, if necessary to prevent any embarrassment which might 
result from your leaving. These are little things, but they win. 

Be content with moderate or even small pay, if there is a future 
in sight. Oftentimes the small beginning makes the most satisfactory 
ending. It is better to start at $45 or $50 a month and advance steadily 
upward with no limit in sight than to start at $75 or $80 with a known 
limit of advancement ahead of you. Put by a part of your earnings, 
10% at least. Put it in a separate bank and do not touch it until you 
have to. If your pay is $50, put by five of it and if $100, put by ten. 
When the accumulation makes $500, take it out of the savings bank 
and buy a good bond. In a short time you will have two or three bonds. 
Then when you want to raise money, to go into business it may be, 
you can offer your bonds as collateral and get the money without ask- 
ing anyone to go on your note with you. It gives a fine feeling of 
independence and enhances one's manhood. 

Probably no better example of the qualities which make for success 
can be found anywhere than in that little story entitled "Carrying a 
Message to Garcia." When asked if you can do a certain thing, let 
your answer be "Aye, Aye, Sir," then go about it and do it. If in the 



410 SUCCESS. 

attempt you find yourself in a hole, climb out. If you can't climb out, 
then die in the attempt. Don't be a coward, be courageous and brave 
and always in a manly way. Let me give you, in closing, the lines of 
John Trotwood Moore entitled 

SUCCESS 
'Tis the coward who quits to misfortune, 

'Tis the knave who changes each day, 
'Tis the fool who wins half the battle. 

Then throws all his chances away. 

There is little in life but labor, 

And tomorrow may find that a dream ; 

Success is the bride of Endeavor, 

And luck — but a meteor's gleam. 

The time to succeed is when others, 

Discouraged, show traces of tire ; 
The battle is fought in the homestretch — 

And won — ^'twixt the flag and the wire. 



SOME OF THE ESSENTIALS OF SUCCESS. 
By 

Dr. Chas. Sumner Howe. 

To supplement Dr. Cooley's inspiring words, some extracts from 
Dr. Howe's address on a like subject to the 1910 graduating class of 
the School of Mines and Metallurgy of the Missouri State University 
are here reproduced. Dr. Howe is President of the Case School of 
Applied Science, the recipient of numerous academic degrees of the 
highest order, and an engineer of acknowledged ability and experience. 
Want of space prevents the reproduction of the entire address, which 
certainly is interesting and valuable from start to finish. 

Charles Summer Howe was born in Nashua, N. H., September 29, 
1858. When he was a few months old his parents removed to Boston, 
where they lived for many years. He received his grammar school edu- 
cation in Boston and his high school education in the town of Franklin, 
Massachusetts. He entered the Massachusetts Agricultural College in 
1874 and was graduated therefrom in 1878; then he passed a year in post- 
graduate study at Amherst, taking up the subjects of mathematics and 
physics; and finally, he spent a year in graduate study at Johns Hop- 
kins University, taking up the same subjects. He has received the de- 
gree of B. S. from the Massachusetts Agricultural College and Boston 
University, that of Ph. D. from Worcester, that of D. Sc. (Hon.) from 
Armour Institute of Technology, and that of LL. D. (Hon.) from Mt. 
Union College and Oberlin College. 

His career as an educator has been constantly onward and upward, 
starting as Principal of a preparatory academy in Colorado, then acting 
as Professor of Mathematics and Astronomy at Buchtel College, Akron, 
Ohio, then taking a similar position in the Case School of Applied Science, 
at Cleveland, Ohio, and finally serving as President of the latter institu- 
tion. 

He belongs to many of the leading technical and scientific societies 
of America, and has held -high offices and important appointments in a 
number of them. 

In civic life he is equally distinguished, having held influential posi- 
tions in Cleveland ; and he has served on several important National Com- 
missions. 

Editors. 

411 



SOME OF THE ESSENTIALS OF SUCCESS. 

By 

Dr. Chas. Sumner Howe. 



A few weeks ago I listened to an address upon the subject "En- 
gineers as Leaders." The speaker proceeded to compare the number 
of prominent engineers with the number of men prominent in other 
professions, and then drew certain comparisons from his figures. I 
have never felt very much interest in the question of preparation in a 
technical school for leadership, either among engineers or in the world 
at laage. Only a few can be leaders, the large majority must hold sub- 
ordinate positions. If the technical school made a special business of 
trying to educate the leaders, it would not properly educate the great 
bulk of its students, for they will be obliged to carry on the everyday, 
ordinary work which falls to most engineers. But there is one point 
in regard to education which does interest me exceedingly; that is, 
education for success. Now, success is a very much abused term. It 
has a certain definition in the dictionary, but its meaning to an individual 
generally depends upon his views of life. One man considers that suc- 
cess does not come to him unless he acquires great wealth ; another, to 
be successful in his own estimation, must receive honors from his fellow 
citizens; another must reach the top of his profession, and so on. It 
is evident that if these are the views of all men in regard to success, 
few of them will attain their goal — for comparatively few can be very 
wealthy, but few can hold distinguished rank, but few can be at the top 
of their professions. 

My definition of success is this : A man is successful when he con- 
tinually does all that it is possible for him to do. All men are not alike. 
One man may have greater intellectual power than others ; another may 
have greater bodily strength ; another may have a faculty of keen insight ; 
another may have the peculiar quality of getting along well with other 
men. Now, the man of medium ability cannot hope, as a rule, to reach 
the same high goal that can be attained by the man of great intellectual 
endowments; but I claim that if the former accomplishes all that his 
powers will enable him to accomplish, he has been just as successful as 
the latter, although he may not have done as much of the world's work. 

413 



414 ■ ESSENTIALS OF SUCCESS. 

Whether you agree with me or not in my definition of success, you will 
at least allow that every man should try to accomplish as much as pos- 
sible — that he should at all times do his very best. 



I believe it is generally true, that if a man is ready for promotion, 
sooner or later it will come to him. Most of you undoubtedly have heard 
men say, "No, I am not going to work any harder; I am doing now all 
I am paid to do." The man who achieves success and secures advance- 
ment always does more than he is paid to do; that is the kind of man 
any firm wants. No employer will hire a man unless he can make money 
out of him, and the more money he can make, the better pleased the em- 
ployer is with the man and the more desirous he is to advance him. 
This is one of the paths to success — do more than you are paid to do, 
and — do it cheerfully. 

The young engineer must know more than his own work or the 
work of the man just ahead of him. He should study the work of his 
company or his firm, and find out its relation to that of other companies 
and firms. He should know where the firm's raw material comes from, 
approximately what it costs, all the steps in its treatment, what the final 
product is, where it is sold, what it is used for; in fact, he should en- 
deavor to gain a comprehensive idea of the whole business. 

'The successful engineering graduate will subscribe for the leading 
technical magazines in his line of work, and he will not only subscribe 
for them — ^he will read them, in order that he may keep posted in re- 
gard to what men in his profession are doing, not only from the engineer- 
ing standpoint, but from the manufacturing standpoint as well. Too 
many technical graduates never take a technical journal. They say 
they do not need it for the work they are doing, which is probably true, 
and if they continue in that frame of mind, the probability is, they will 
never need to take the journals, because they will not rise to positions 
of high enough responsibility to make it necessary. The successful man 
— the man who is doing all that is in him to do — must know what other 
men are doing, and he must put this knowledge to use in the work which 
he does from day to day. 

I believe every engineering graduate should keep a card catalog of 
articles and books which he reads, and these cards should give the in- 
formation under so many different heads that it surely can be found 
when needed. Almost every man has at some time in his career wanted 
very much some article which he rem.embers having read but cannot 
place. Usually, this occurs to men every week or every day. Knowl- 
edge is valuable only as it can be used. No one can remember every- 
thing which he has read ; no one can know all there is to- be known ; 



HOWE. 415 

but every engineering graduate should know where to go to find the in- 
formation necessary in the successful pursuit of his profession. This 
means knowing how to search encyclopedias, magazines, books, etc., 
and I ihink the practice of keeping a card catalog of the important 
things read will pay for itself many times over. Do not be afraid of a 
little extra work of this kind. 

The man who is looking for the highest success should study men 
who have been successful, to find out the secret of their success. Suc- 
cessful men have many qualities. I believe it will always be found that 
they are educated. Now, this does not mean that they have had a col- 
lege education, but it means that they have educated themselves for the 
things they have had to do and the lives they have had to lead; and this 
is the kind of an education that every man must have if he is to rise 
above his fellow-men, no matter whether he has previously received a 
college education or not. A technical education does not necessarily 
mean success ; there are many other essentials. Very frequently parents 
think that if a boy goes through college he ought to become a success- 
ful man, and they sometimes intimate as much to college faculties. But 
the fact is, if a college is to make a successful engineer out of a student, 
the boy must have some brains to start with. Mental ability, correct 
habits of thought and work, intelligence, power of application, the 
ability to get along with men, love of work, high character, are all 
necessary for success, and I am not sure that a technical education is 
more essential than any one of these. These qualities should be cul- 
tivated by the one who would win success, because they are necessary, 
if the highest goal is to be reached. All men do not have these qual- 
ities to the same degree, and a man is not to be held accountable for 
natural qualities which he does not possess. He is, however, to be held 
accountable for the way in which he uses and improves the natural en- 
dowments which are his. It is this use and improvement of that which 
nature has given him which I have termed ''Success." It is possible 
for every man to develop his powers to the highest degree, and that 
is all that any one can expect him to do. 

Again, if a man is to be successful in this world, he must have the 
ability to do things. The American nation demands results, and much 
will be forgiven him who secures them. A strenuous president may 
make enemies by some of the things he does, but the nation at large 
will overlook many mistakes if he is one to whom accomplishment has 
become a habit. The engineer must do things, because if he does not he 
is not an engineer. It is the business of men of this profession to take 
the materials and forces of nature and to use them for the benefit of 
mankind. The materials may lie in inaccessible places; they may not 



416 ESSENTIALS OF SUCCESS. 

be in the form or shape necessary for use. But the engineer must 
overcome these difficulties and transport the material to the place where 
it can be used and change its form or substance so that it will be ser- 
viceable to man. He may run up against some pretty stiff natural 
laws, and these laws will not change nor step out of the way because 
the man who wishes to use them is a graduate of a technical school. 
He must use the laws in the way in which they were intended to be 
used, and he must make one force counteract another until the desired 
result is reached. In fact, he is constantly doing things, and this is 
what makes him such an effective unit in the society of the present age. 
I have spoken of some of the individual characteristics which make 
for success, but the progress of the nation' is of much more importance 
than the well-being of an individual. A man's work cannot be callefl 
successful, no matter what it brings to him, if it is detrimental to the 
nation at large. 



ADDRESS TO THE GRADUATING CLASS OF THE ROSE 

POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE. 

By 

Dr. J. A. L. Waddell. 

This address was delivered in 1902, nine years after the preceding 
one, to the students of Kansas University; and therefore it represents 
the conclusions of the author's more mature judgment. Mr. Harrington 
in compiling Dr. Waddell 's "Principal Professional Papers," takes 
issue thus Vv^th him on one of the matters treated. 

"Serious exception may be taken, however, to the strictures against 
municipal service. The work for which cities employ engineers is 
of the highest importance and requires something of the skill and tact 
of the politician, as well as engineering knowledge. It is true that 
'practical politics' is commonly odious to the scientific man who is 
intent upon rendering the best possible service, but it is rare indeed that 
the engineer is free to act according to his best judgment, no matter 
what his position. If he be in the employ of a manufacturer or a con- 
tractor, competition forces him to adopt many methods which fall 
short of the best. Even the consulting engineer is often vexed by 
restrictions which his clients force upon him. In no case is one abso- 
lutely free to act according to his judgment except, possibly, in some 
private matters. 

"But there is great public work to be done, and honest capable men 
must be employed to do it. The civil engineer who enters the employ of 
a public corporation will encounter many annoying obstacles. Politicians 
will endeavor to force incompetent assistants upon him; with good in- 
tent and bad, his work will be unfairly criticised; due honor and credit 
will be denied him; he may even be persecuted for taking his stand 
against corruption; but in spite of these unpleasant features of his 
position, he is in duty bound to conduct his office for the benefit of his 
employer, the public. The more difficult the position, the more credit 
is due if it be honorably filled. The harder the battle, the stronger the 
victor will be." 

The placing of the office of city engineer under civil service rules, 
which is fast coming into vogue, removes most of the objections which 
Dr. Waddell used to hold against municipal engineering. 

Editors. 

417 



ADDRESS TO THE MEMBERS OF THE GRADUATING 

CLASS IN THE ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT OF 

THE ROSE POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE. 

By 

Dr. J. A. L. Waddell. 

Gentlemen : — When your worthy President did me the honor 
of inviting me to address you on this auspicious occasion, I was sorely 
tempted to decline, because of the vast amount of professional work 
with which my associates and I are at present struggling. This is 
by far the busiest period of my entire career, and possibly you know 
that my life has not been an idle one. Notwithstanding this state of 
affairs, I concluded to accept your President's invitation, because I 
recognize that it is an important part of an old engineer's duty to aid 
young engineers in making their start in life. 

I feel that I must begin with an apology for reading to you a 
type-written address, assuring you that, as an extempore speaker, I am 
an utter failure, unless it be when lecturing on technical subjects; and 
I think that you will agree with me that a fair written address is pre- 
ferable to a poor extempore one. 

Your President has left me the choice of a subject, merely sug- 
gesting that I give the boys some good advice and try to make my 
remarks of general interest so as to reach others than the engineering 
graduates. With the first portion of this suggestion I most readily 
comply; but I must beg to be excused from the second, as I am no 
hand at making popular speeches. My remarks then, young gentle- 
men, will be directed to you solely, hence those of my hearers who do 
not belong to the graduating class are destined, probably, to have a 
stupid time; but I can promise them that it will be comparatively short. 

An engineer's success in life depends greatly upon two things: 
First, the thoroughness with which he has pursued his studies at his 
technical school ; and, second, the start that he makes immediately after 
leaving there. 

In respect to the first matter, I assume that the conditions here, 
like those that have always existed at that other and older R. P. I. (of 
which, by the way, I have the honor to be an alumnus) are such that 
no student who has failed to attend strictly to business during his four 
years' course is able to be present today in the graduating class, and 

419 



2J. 



420 ROSE POLYTECHNIC ADDRESS 

that, consequently, you all are in good shape as far as the first requisite is 
concerned. It is of the second, therefore, that I shall now proceed to 
treat, by giving you some wholesome advice, based not only upon my 
own professional experience, but also upon that of other engineers of 
my acquaintance, and having due regard to both successful and unsuc- 
cessful careers. 

Generally speaking, advice to young men is a wasted effort, for 
it goes into one ear and comes out of the other (concerning this I 
can speak authoratively, for I am trying to rear two boys of my own) ; 
but in your case I hope for better things than ordinarily, as this is a 
momentous period in' the life of each of you. Let me assure you, young 
gentlemen, that there is nothing which will be so conducive to your 
professional success as good advice from older engineers, whether they 
be successful men or not. In the case of the former, they can tell you 
what they did in order to reach the desired goal; and in the case of the 
latter, you can learn what they failed to do and what mistakes they 
made. Hence let me begin my suggestions by counseling each of you 
to become intimately acquainted with one or more successful engineers, 
and, craving their advice and opinion from time to time, follow both. 

Young men just leaving their alma mater naturally feel that the 
whole world is before them, and that their success is almost an assured 
fact ; but I tell you that you are very liable to find it otherwise, that 
you will undoubtedly experience many hard knocks, that at times you 
will feel very dubious as to what is best to do, and that you will often 
long for counsel from some friendly member of the profession whose 
opinion you can trust. 

It is on this account that I advise you to become acquainted with 
your brother engineers as far as lies in your power and to impress 
upon each of them favorably your individuality, that later on you may 
not be forgotten. Time spent in visiting older members of the pro- 
fession is by no means wasted ; therefore take it whenever you can do 
:^o without neglecting your duties ; and endeavor to confine your con- 
versation with such men mainly to technical subj.ects, preferably those 
in which they are specially interested. A young engineer can often aid 
an older one materially by assisting him in some of his calculations 
and in the preparation of papers for technical societies. What would 
often be drudgery to the older engineer would prove to be valuable 
experience to the younger, consequently never hesitate to undertake, 
in such case, tedious computations which will lead eventually to valu- 
able deductions, even though your reward be apparently nil. An engi- 
neer of the right kind (and I am happy to be able to assure you that 



WADDELL. 421 

most of them can be so classed) is only too glad to give full credit to a 
younger man who has helped him in his investigations. 

Concerning the benefit to be derived from an older engineer's 
opinion and the need for it, I can speak from experience; for many a 
time have I received kindly help and encouragement from my good 
friend, Professor Burr; yet in the old days when we were associated 
together at Rensselaer, being of nearly the same age. we often got 
beyond our depth and would have given much for some sound advice 
from engineers of high standing; but unfortunately it was not at our 
command. I can look back upon many a wasted hour in my early 
days, when, active, energetic, and ambitious, I desired most earnestly 
to. devote my attention to investigations the results of which would 
prove useful to our profession and would tend to establish my repu- 
tation as an engineer and a technical writer. But alas ! there was no 
one to direct my energies into a proper channel or to show me how to 
employ my time. 

Enforced idleness for an engineer is the greatest curse in ex- 
istence ; and there ought to be no excuse for a member of our profes- 
sion having a single, necessarily-idle hour; because he should always 
have laid out for the future more things professional to investigate 
and accomplish than he can possibly perform. It is a serious thing 
for an energetic young fellow (and all engineers of any account, both 
young and old, are energetic) to run short of work for any length of 
time. I well remember a period of eight months of enforced idleness that 
I experienced a few years after graduating, during which time I nearly 
wore myself out with worry and restlessness, not having had sufficient 
practical experience to enable me to write more than a paper or two. 
It is true that I had saved up quite a little money, enough to tide me over 
the bad times without having to appeal to my father for assistance, 
and that during that period I obtained a pretty sound knowledge of 
the French language ; nevertheless I succeeded in worrying myself 
absolutely ill. I assure you that I would not go through those eight 
months again for untold wealth. They are the only part of my life 
that I look back upon as truly unhappy. 

You young men are, in a way, much more fortunate than I was, 
in that I started my professional career during the depressed years 
of 75, 76, and 77, while you are entering upon yours at the most 
prosperous time ever known in the history of America. Never before 
were engineers in such demand, never before was the compensation 
for professional services so good, never before was the country so 
wealthy, and never before were the prospects for the future so bright. 
Our great republic (and believe me, although alien born, I can truly 



422 ROSE POLYTECHNIC ADDRESS 

appreciate its greatness) has entered the world's arena with, the in- 
tention of taking quickly the first place among nations; and in the 
peaceful strife that is to ensue, American engineers of all lines will" 
be found in the van, bearing the brunt of the struggle and, even in the 
most remote corners of the earth, forcing foreign nations to adopt our 
methods and to purchase the manufactured products of our country. 

Ours is truly the greatest of all of the professions ! With it none 
other can compare ! It, and it alone, is essentially the profession of 
progress ! To whom is due the unparalleled world-advancement of the 
last half century? Who are the men who have developed the resources 
of the North American continent? To whom are we indebted for all 
the great luxuries of modern life? To these questions there can be 
but one answer: — the civil engineers, using the term in its true and 
broad sense, so as to include all engineers except the military. 

Compared with all other professions, ours is by far the most desir- 
able. Lawyers, of necessity, lose one-half of their cases; therefore 
about fifty per cent, of their total work is failure; while all engineering 
work is, or should be, successful. Half of the time lawyers are retained 
to disguise the truth or so to distort it as to win cases for their clients, 
while the engineer is essentially a searcher after truth. 

The doctor too often gropes blindly in the dark, using tentative 
methods and relying upon nature to help him out of his difficulties ; for 
medicine is anything but an exact science; while engineering comes 
nearer being such than does any other profession. 

The military man's main object in life is to destroy, while the engi- 
neer's is to construct. 

The minister deals with things based on faith, while the engineer 
in all his works is governed by the laws of nature, which, as a rule, he 
understands fairly well, and with which he must comply in order to be 
successful. 

Civil engineering is the youngest of all the learned professions; 
and until quite lately many people, including even some of its promi- 
nent members, maintained that it was not a profession at all, but simply 
a trade. However, all that is a thing of the past, and engineers are now 
not only considered to be professional men, but are looked up to by 
the populace. ''Straws show which way the wind blows," hence, to 
learn the world's opinion of engineering and the civil engineer, we can 
consult the light literature of the past and present. It is not many 
years ago that the English novelists sneered at the engineer, terming him 
a "greasy mechanic" and placing him outside the pale of polite society. 
At that time American novelists either simply ignored the engineer 
by leaving him out of their dramatis personae, or, when he did come in- 



WADDELL. 423 

cidentally into the plot, considered him about on a par with a boss 
carpenter. To-day all this is changed. Many of the prominent modern 
novels have civil engineers for their heroes; and in all of them the 
members of the engineering profession are invariably treated with the 
greatest consideration. In France and in French literature the civil 
engineer has always been recognized with due esteem, as is witnessed by 
the works of Jules Verne and other French writers. There is perhaps 
good reason for this, because the civil engineer in France for the last 
hundred years has always been a polished, highly educated gentleman, 
and generally a graduate of a school of world-wide reputation. 

In our country any man or boy who can use a surveying instru- 
ment or even drag a chain or handle a rod, has the privilege of dubbing 
himself a. civil engineer, thus lowering the profession in the minds of 
the public, which generally fails to distinguish between a graduate 
engineer and one who has risen from the ranks. Nevertheless, nowa- 
days in this country in order to attain anything beyond mediocre suc- 
cess in engineering, a young man must be a graduate of a technical 
school, and the higher the reputation of the school the better are his 
chances. It is true that we have in the profession many prominent 
men who never had a technical school training, but they are almost 
invariably of advanced years. 

In England there have been until lately no special schools for 
engineers, hence the young engineer there has had to obtain 
his education by the crude and faulty system of apprenticeship. On 
this account there may have been some reason for the low standing of 
engineers in the opinion of writers and society people ; nevertheless, 
the English engineer of today ranks in his own country second to no 
other professional man. Again, the Institution of Civil Engineers 
of Great Britain is certainly the greatest and most influential engineer- 
ing society in the world; and some of America's most eminent engin- 
eers are proud to be able to write M. I. C. E. after their names. 

Yes — there is in my mind no doubt about it — ours is the most 
satisfactory profession of them all, notwithstanding its numerous phys- 
ical hardships, its grave responsibilities, and its exacting demands 
upon one's time and energies. Never once since graduation, over a 
quarter of a century ago, would I for an instant have considered any 
proposition to abandon the profession of my choice, and never once 
have I regretted that choice — this notwithstanding the fact that my 
early experience was anything but an easy one, involving as it did 
small pay, excessively hard work, long hours, continued exposure to 
rain and snow, occasionally extreme hunger, unappreciated effort, and 
sometimes imminent peril to life. Many of these things at the time 



424 ROSE POLYTECHNIC ADDRESS 

were intensely disagreeable; but now I look back upon them with great 
satisfaction, feeling that they were indeed blessings in disguise. Hard 
knocks tend to develop a man and to bring out the best that is in him; 
hence if in the near future any one of you have occasion to feel that 
the world is treating him badly or that he is ''out of luck," he should 
not worry about it, but should proceed upon the even tenor of his way, 
having confidence that all will come right ere long, and that later he 
will have occasion to feel thankful for all his unpleasant experiences. 

The question that naturally interests you most just now is what 
work you will start with and possibly what compensation you will re- 
ceive; hence a few suggestions from an old fellow who has been in 
harness for many years will perhaps be acceptable. 

It is far more important that you obtain good experience than that 
you receive at the outset a large salary. The services of a newly-fledged 
engineer are as a rule of little or no account. On some work they have 
a positive value, on other work they are worth zero, and on still other 
work they have a negative value. The higher the branch of engineer- 
ing that the recent graduate enters, the less valuable to his employers 
will be his services. For instance, in any work of surveying the young 
engineer from the very first day can earn as much as a teamster, axe- 
man, rodman, or general roustabout, and in a few weeks considerably 
more ; in more complicated work, such as waterworks, sewerage, or 
railroading, for a few months at least, the value of his services will be 
approximately zero; while in extremely complicated work, such as 
bridge designing, the drafting that he does at first either has to be 
done all over again, or requires so much time for. correction as to ren- 
der it practically worthless ; and at the same time he occupies the at- 
tention of those whose services cost considerable money and who 
possess large earning capacity. In our office we estimate that it takes 
three months to bring the value of the recent graduate's services up to 
zero, and three months more to recoup the office for its loss on his in- 
struction ; hence it is not until after six months that his work really 
begins to become remunerative. 

Each of you must judge for himself what class of work is best 
suited to his needs and conditions. Fortunately for you, it is practic- 
able today to enter any branch of engineering that you may choose, 
as engineers of all kinds are in great demand, everybody having more 
work than he can really do in the short time that is almost invariably al- 
lowed on the engineering portion of enterprises. 

Some of you are perhaps in need of money, possibly to pay debts 
incurred in obtaining your education. These I would advise to take 
positions on railroad surveys, where good salaries are paid at the out- 



WADDELL. 425 

set, and where up to a certain point promotion is rapid for a man of the 
right type. Or if field work be not to your taste, comparatively large 
earnings can be made at once by entering as draftsman the employ of 
a bridge manufacturing company. Here the promotion is slow, and 
the professional advancement is still slower, as it is naturally to the 
company's advantage to keep a man continuously at one kind of work 
as soon as he becomes proficient in it. Comparatively good positions 
can be obtained by joining the engineer corps of a large railroad com- 
pany, and working up step by step ; but the progress is slow, and the 
plums that can be reached at the top of that tree are only two or three 
in number. 

It is not a bad idea to take a subordinate position in some large 
manufacturing concern, and work up ; for there the possibilities of 
promotion are better, and there is always a chance of making your 
services so valuable that you will eventually be taken into the company. 

Government positions are fair enough in a way; but they are diffi- 
cult to obtain, and do not offer much of a field to an ambitious man. 
About the poorest and most unsatisfactory position that one can take 
is in the employ of a city, not only because the pay is generally small, 
but mainly because the tenure of office is so uncertain. Believe me, I 
would prefer a position as boss grader on a dump to that of city- 
engineer, and I would rather work as a navvy with a pick and shovel 
than accept a subordinate position in the engineering department of a 
city. Avoid all political positions; they are badly paid, insecure, and 
in every way unsatisfactory. It degrades a man, in his own estimation 
at least, to feel that he is at the mercy of every log-rolling, wire-pulling 
ward-politician who may for any reason take offense against him. En- 
gineering positions in municipalities ought to be placed above the con- 
trol of politics; but how to accomplish such a desideratum is more than 
I can suggest. 

As far as the attainment of knowledge and ultimate high advance- 
ment are concerned, the best positions to take are those in the employ 
of consulting engineers of established reputation. Ordinarily these are 
very hard to get ; but at present it is otherwise. In England a young 
man has to pay handsomely for the privilege of entering such an office 
and working there for several years without any salary whatsoever; 
but this custom does not exist in America, owing to the fact that such 
good training is given in our technical schools. 

No matter what branch of engineering you choose, aim always to 
obtain valuable experience rather than large pay; the latter will follow 
as a matter of course after the former is acquired. 



426 ROSE POLYTECHNIC ADDRESS 

If I were once more a young man just leaving my alma mater, and 
if I were not cramped for means, I would, for at least five or six years, 
work in subordinate capacities, for a few months at a time in each 
position, leaving just as soon as I had mastered the principal engineer- 
ing features of the work, or just as soon as the daily attainment of 
knowledge failed to satisfy my desire, and taking up another line of 
work, in order to secure for myself a sound, practical knowledge of a 
number of branches of engineering. Meanwhile, I would be deciding 
on my specialty and gradually turning my energies towards the chosen 
line of work, to the ultimate exclusion of all other lines; and I would 
not rest content until after I had acquainted myself with every minor 
detail of my adopted specialty, so that, after settling down to a private 
practice of my own, I should feel master of the situation on each new 
piece of work as it comes up, and should never have any reason to 
fear that my ignorance of any detail would prejudice me in the opin- 
ion of my clients. It would take courage and plenty of it to follow such 
a course as this ; but the ends to be attained would be worth the effort. 

It is a great mistake for a young engineer to choose a specialty before 
he has had several years of general experience. What a source of dis- 
satisfaction it must be for a middle-aged man to feel that he has chosen 
the wrong line of work, and that it is too late to make a change! 

It is possible that I am wrong in giving you advice based upon the 
supposition that you all desire intensely to rise high in the profession, 
and that you will eventually reach the top of the tree. It is true that all 
cannot be first and that all have not equal ability ; or, to quote the senti- 
ments if not the exact words of a poet who is today almost forgotten, 
''Order is Nature's law, and this confessed, 
Some are and will be greater than the rest." 
Nevertheless, in my opinion, it is better to strive constantly for a high 
ideal and fail to attain it completely, rather than to jog along contented 
with small things and mild ambitions. At any rate, the actual results 
attained by the former method are almost sure to exceed materially those 
accomplished by the latter. 

From personal experience, I can assure you that it is within your 
power to attain ultimately your heart's desire for professional advance- 
ment and distinction, no matter how lofty your ambition may be, pro- 
vided that you strive for it faithfully and never despair. To be a suc- 
cessful engineer, one should establish in his own mind (and generally 
keep them strictly there) certain objects to be attained in both the im- 
mediate and the distant future, adding to them from time to time as his 
experience increases, and never resting content until they are accom- 
plished. Earnestness of purpose is a sine qua non for success; with- 



WADDELL. 427 

out it one may as well consider himself at the outset out of the race. 
Above all things, don't work by the clock and quit the moment time is 
up; for if you do, you will soon establish for yourself with your em- 
ployers and associates the reputation of being a mere time-server. I 
have on several occasions seen a navvy with a pick poised for a blow, 
drop the tool upon the first blast of the whistle announcing quitting 
time. Such an action may be excusable in an ignorant workman, but 
it would not be so in a member of the civil engineering profession. 

Some engineers pay their assistants for overtime, while others do 
not. I have tried both ways, and am able to say which is the better 
method; and this is my judgment: The overtime system is more sat- 
isfactory to the average draftsman, and at the same time is really better 
for the employer; because he then pays for only the hours actually spent 
on the work, counting out all lost time, and because he feels no hesita- 
tion in asking his men to work nights and even Sundays when occasion 
demands. Nevertheless, I have noticed that the young engineers who 
have risen the most rapidly are those who have never been paid for 
overtime ; and this stands to reason, because an employer of the right kind 
feels that in common decency he must promote rapidly any employee 
who shows such an interest in the work as to labor overtime without 
thought of extra compensation. 

In all your work cultivate to the utmost the attributes of reliability 
and accuracy, and never let any computations be used unchecked, the 
checking being done either by an independent computer or by an en- 
tirely different method of figuring. I cannot impress upon you too 
earnestly the importance of a thorough check on all work. Without it, 
mistakes, and sometimes serious ones, are sure to occur, for the man who 
makes no mistakes is the man who does no work. 

Some students of technical schools look down upon drafting as 
being infra dig., and think it not worth while to perfect themselves 
therein, assuming that immediately after graduation they will obtain 
positions outranking those of draftsmen. No greater mistake than this 
can be made. If any of you have gone through school with this idea 
in mind, I advise that before beginning actual practice you take a post- 
graduate course in the mechanical part of drafting. It is by no means 
enough to know how to outline a design; it is absolutely essential that 
you be able to finish the drawings neatly and thoroughly, so that the 
blue prints made from your tracings will be a credit to the office where 
they were prepared. Drafting is by no means beneath the dignity of an 
engineer, and unless he be truly proficient therein he is likely to fail to 
attain success. 



428 ROSE POLYTECHNIC ADDRESS 

This reminds me of an amusing incident that occurred the other 
day in my practice, and I shall relate it as an illustration of the point 
I am trying to make. 

A middle-aged engineer of considerable experience but who was 
temporarily out of work, applied to me for a position in our office, vol- 
unteering several times the information that he was an engineer and 
not a draftsman. He dwelt so much upon this point that I felt con- 
strained to inform him that nearly all the draftsmen in our employ were 
engineers and several of them very good ones indeed. Although sadly 
in want of office assistance, we had no position to offer the gentleman. 

There is no part of an engineer's work that is infra dig., arid I as- 
sure you, young gentlemen, that there are many valuable things which 
you can learn from the illiterate workman who labors in the ditch with 
his pick and shovel, or who mixes concrete on the platform. There is 
no part of construction work that is of too menial a nature for you 
to learn. Knowledge of every kind will stand you in good stead 
sooner or later. There is a certain amount of drudgery that all have 
to do, and it should always be done willingly and good naturedly. The 
harder you work on it, the sooner it will be finished ; therefore get right 
at it and do not shirk. 

Every young engineer should make a practice of reading the leading 
technical papers, at first covering almost the entire practice of engineer- 
ing, but gradually omitting those articles in which he is not peculiarly 
interested, until finally, after his specialty is chosen, his reading will 
cover only the items of general news and those papers which pertain to 
his particular line of work and thought. One must discriminate in 
reading of all kinds, for otherwise much valuable time will be wasted. 
There is certainly a deal of technical trash written ; hence it is necessary 
to learn how to separate the wheat from the chaff. 

Are some of you congratulating yourselves with the thought that 
your four years of hard study are at last over, and that after you enter 
the actual practice of engineering there will be no further need for 
study? If so, please proceed at once to disabuse your minds of this idea, 
for it is fundamentally and essentially wrong. If you fail to keep up 
and to carry on your studies, good-bye to all hopes for professional dis- 
tinction or even mediocre success. Engineers have to be students all 
their lives, and the younger they are the greater their necessity for study- 
ing from books. Believe me, you have still a great deal to learn; 
therefore I advise each of you to devote at least one hour per day, or 
preferably two hours, to the continuation of your technical studies and 
to the reviewing of your mathematics, both pure and applied. The day 
when you will no longer be able to continue such studies will come only 



WADDELL. 429 

too soon ; consequently I counsel you, while you are still young, to 
devote to them what time you can spare. 

Lay out in consultation with some professional friend a course of 
study in both theoretical and practical subjects, and stick to it con- 
scientiously. Set a certain time for a certain amount of reading, and if 
you fail to cover it in the given period, work harder in the next period 
so as to catch up with your programme. No matter what your oc- 
cupation may be, you will be able to find time for study as long as you 
continue to be an employee, because no employer can expect to occupy 
more than a reasonable amount of your time in excess of the usual 
hours of labor, even if he does compensate you for it with extra pay. 

Study well the English language and obtain a thorough command 
of it, in order that you may be able to speak and to write it with con- 
ciseness and vigor. Perfect yourself in style by reading well written 
books, even if they come under the denomination of light literature. 
A little of the latter affords relaxation, and, when really good, can do 
no harm to a professional man, unless he becomes so addicted to its 
perusal as to neglect more important reading. Nowadays there are 
many American and Canadian writers of good fiction, whose command 
of the English language is excellent, hence, there are plenty of good, 
interesting books from which to choose. 

As a rule the graduate engineer has no time to devote to the study 
of foreign languages ; and it is questionable whether it be advisable to 
devote to them much time at the technical schools. The plea for their 
retention is that there are many good technical books in these languages 
that the student ought to be able to read. My reply to this is that there 
are more good technical books in the English language than a man can 
ever find time to study, and that all valuable technical works in for- 
eign languages are soon translated into English. In my opinion, a 
knowledge of French is only a gentlemanly accompHshment, and one 
that a man is very liable to lose for want of use, and a knowledge of 
German is of no advantage whatsoever to an American engineer. There 
is one foreign language, though, that I believe it would be a good policy 
to teach to technical students, and that is the Spanish ; but the instruc- 
tion given in it, to be of value at all, should be so thorough as to enable 
each student to read, write, and speak it with ease and fairly correctly. 
Is such a course practicable? I answer most decidedly, ''yes," but the 
methods of teaching foreign languages now in vogue in technical and 
most other schools would have to be abandoned and a more practicable 
method adopted instead. The reason for teaching Spanish in tech- 
nical schools is that American engineers are beginning to monopolize 
the principal engineering positions in the Latin-American countries ; 



430 ROSE POLYTECHNIC ADDRESS 

and, as the latter develop, the demand in those countries for American 
engineers will surely increase. A man going to such a country with- 
out any knowledge of the Spanish language is badly handicapped. 
Eventually he will learn by contact enough of it to get along; but owing 
to lack of time for study and the unavoidable disability of advancing 
years, he will never be a master of even the rudiments of the language. 
It is far easier for a boy to learn a foreign language than it is for a 
middle-aged or elderly man. Concerning this matter I am speaking 
from experience, because for the past three years a large percentage 
of my professional work has been located in Mexico and Cuba, and I 
have spent fully one-third of that time in the former country. How 
often have^ I wished that I had studied Spanish properly in my youth 
instead of wasting my time on Latin and Greek, both of which I have 
long forgotten! 

In laying out a course of post-graduate study, be careful to choose 
only those subjects that will have a practical value, and beware of 
abstruse mathematical calculations, for these too often are based on 
false hypotheses and in consequence produce unreliable results. Mathe- 
matics should be treated as a servant and not worshipped as a god! 
Some men appear to think that a technical paper, to be of any account, 
should be filled with abstruse mathematical calculations, on the same 
principle which many old English writers adopted when they interlard- 
ed their writings with numerous Latin and Greek quotations, simply 
to show that they had received a polished education. This is all 
wrong; for the less mathematics a technical paper contains and the 
simpler the mathematics, the better, in my opinion, is the paper. Now 
don't go ofif with the idea that I am not a believer in the higher math- 
ematics and in the necessity for their study. Although as a rule the 
mathematics in an engineer's practice are of a very simple and elementary 
character, yet there occasionally occurs a problem which will set him 
to thinking and to brushing up on the mathematics of his school days. 
It was only a few weeks ago that I ran across one of these cases, and 
I shall now describe it to you in order to illustrate a practical man's 
habit of making short cuts to obtain results. 

,From a point on a bridge tangent out in a river, three hundred 
and forty feet from its intersection with a base line which cuts it at 
an obtuse angle, starts a twelve-thirty curve. The problem was to 
locate exactly the intersection of the curve and the base line. I made 
several attempts by both trigonometry and analytics to get an exact 
equation, but each time found that I had too many unknown quantities 
for the number of my equations. While I was thoroughly convinced 
that an exact, direct solution of the problem was feasible, for lack of 



WADDELL. 431 

time I simply fudged it by establishing an equation of only one un- 
known quantity, viz., the angle included between two radii of the curve, 
one passing through the starting point and the other through the inter- 
section of the curve and the base line. One side of this equation in- 
volved the sine of this angle and the other side the cosine ; consequently 
by measuring the angle very accurately on the plot and making three 
or four trial substitutions in the equation, I was able to obtain its true 
value with all the necessary accuracy. I had given the problem to one of 
our assistants, a bright young fellow who graduated last year from 
the Industrial University of Arkansas (an institution, by the way, which 
has turned out two or three engineers who are second to none in their 
specialties) ; and he by taking plenty of time succeeded in finding the 
exact equation, but it was an appalling one. Both equations were used 
in preparing the construction diagram, and afforded an excellent check 
on the correctness of the calculations. 

Let me give you another example of practical mathematics. Sev- 
eral years ago wx had occasion to send as transitman on the construc- 
tion of a large bridge a young engineer new to our employ. One of 
the first difficult problems that he encountered was the daily determi- 
nation of the various errors in position of a pneumatic caisson during 
the process of sinking. The mathematical problem was too much for 
him; and he telegraphed to our ofiice for a demonstration. My partner 
replied that I was then on my way to the bridge site and would give him 
the information desired ; hence upon my arrival I found the problem 
awaiting me. Hitherto I had left to my resident engineers the task of ascer- 
taining daily the position of each caisson, and they had always solved 
the problem by some means or other in a manner satisfactory to them- 
selves; consequently I had never before had occasion to demonstrate 
the method. I asked the young man to let me see his figures, and found 
that he had accumulated a mass of sines, cosines, and tangents of the 
utmost complication without obtaining any result. I thereupon, sat down 
and worked out in an hour or two a practical solution, then handed it 
over to him to check. He did not get very far with his figures before 
he exclaimed, "Here, this is all wrong. You have assumed two lines as 
parallel when they are evidently not so; for if they were, there would 
be no error in the direction of the horizontal axis of the caisson." To 
this I replied, "Yes, I know the two lines are not truly parallel, but 
how much error have I made in the demonstration by assuming them so ? 
Moreover, granting that the lines are not even approximately parallel, 
the erroneously calculated error of position will be close enough for an 
approximate correction. during the next day's sinking, and in your next 
solution of the problem the effect of the false assumption will be almost 



432 ROSE POLYTECHNIC ADDRESS 

infinitesimal." Since that time all of our resident engineers have been 
furnished with blue prints containing this ''faulty" mathematical 
demonstration; and some day, when I have time, I am going to insert 
it in a second edition of De Pontibus. 

It is strange what a distaste practical engineers develop for long 
and complicated formulae and for making intricate mathematical inves- 
tigations. This is an excellent reason for giving in technical schools 
thorough courses in both pure and applied mathematics, and for young 
engineers to continue their mathematical studies after graduation. 

Every engineer should keep constantly in his pocket a note-book 
in which to record, as soon as he thinks of them, things to be done ; 
and whenever he runs short of work, even for a few minutes, he should 
look over the list and pick out something that can be finished during the 
interval. As soon as one of the items has been attended to, he should 
draw a line through it; and when the list gets too long and too much 
scratched, he should transfer the remaining items . to a new list and 
start afresh. It is surprising how much can be accomplished in this 
way. Some people claim that this habit is absolutely destructive to 
one's memory. This may be true ; but it is a fact that a busy engineer's 
memory is the most unreliable feature in his entire constitution; hence 
the damage done by the note book is of little consequence. 

One should endeavor to utilize all of his spare time in either work or 
amusement, as time simply idled away is an absolute loss to both one- 
self and the public. An engineer should not even understand the ex- 
pression ''to kill time." As I often tell people who delay me unneces- 
sarily by failure to comply with instructions, "Time is the most valu- 
able thing I possess, and you have robbed me of some of it by not doing 
as you were requested." Even when traveling one can utilize his spare 
time; for example, this address was blocked out on a Pullman car and 
written in hotels during a business trip in the South about a month ago. 

It is an excellent plan for an engineer to keep a diary and record 
therein daily (not weekly or even on alternate days) all events of impor- 
tance, work done, progress of construction, etc. Such a diary will prove 
of great service in many ways, especially on field work. 

Every young engineer should join the leading technical society in 
his branch of the profession, starting in as a Junior immediately after 
graduation and changing grade as soon as he qualifies, until he reaches 
the highest. He should also take an interest in the Society's affairs 
and contribute to its proceedings by writing for it papers descriptive 
of his work, or recording the results of original investigations, or 
compiling scattered knowledge. Don't write until you have some- 



WADDELL. 433 

thing interesting and valuable to present ; but make it your business to 
find something of the kind as soon as possible. 

It is a good thing for a young engineer, after he has been from 
three to five years in practice, to spend a year or two in teaching engi- 
neering in a technical school, for no experience can impress things on 
one's mind so thoroughly as does teaching; besides, a year or two thus 
employed offers the young engineer an excellent opportunity to make 
investigations based on his practical experience, thus contributing to the 
general fund of professional knowledge as well as aiding to establish 
his reputation as an investigator and a technical writer. It does not do, 
however, to spend many years at teaching, unless one intends to make 
it his life's work. No greater mistake can be made than to start teach- 
ing in an engineering school immediately after graduation. The 
newly-fledged alumnus is fit to teach no part of the curriculum, un- 
less it be pure mathematics, and he could teach even that much better 
after having had a few years of practical engineering experience. 

Every engineer who has any literary gift whatsoever should 
cherish the ambition to write a technical book. Good technical books 
are needed to-day, and will always be in demand. Their lives are of 
necessity short, as practice is constantly changing; but the funda- 
mental principles of design and construction never change ; therefore 
he who deals with these in his writings will produce works that will 
continue to be useful perhaps long after he has passed away. 

In your practice do not hesitate to try new methods or to depart 
from established custom, provided that after thorough consideration 
you feel sure that the departure would be a wise one and in the line 
of improvement. If all engineers followed precedent, how little 
progress would be efifected! Should you, peradventure, come to grief 
in any of your experiments or departures from the beaten track, don't 
try to hide your failure, but publish it generously so that others may 
be warned by your experience. Believe me, the confession of such 
a failure will not harm you in the least, but will give others confi- 
dence in your honesty and courage. 

In all that you do, remember that you have the reputation of 
the greatest of all professions to uphold, that your integrity must ever 
be beyond question, and that there is never an excuse for untruth 
of any kind. Business shrewdness is all very well in its way, especi- 
ally for those who go into contracting; but falsehood is always need- 
less. On the other hand, an uncompromising bluntness is unneces- 
sary; and, in dealing with people, a cultivation of policy and tact is 
a virtue. Because you think a man is a fool that is no reason for 
telling him so ; and, when you see that an individual is cherishing 



434 ROSE POLYTECHNIC ADDRESS 

some pet notion which is erroneous, it is far better to lead him 
gently to a recognition of his error than it would be to tell him im- 
periously that he is wrong, or that he does not understand the matter. 
Policy and tact are just as essential to success in engineering as are 
ability, energy, and integrity. By means of the last three attributes 
one is enabled to do his work thoroughly and well, but it takes the 
two former to enable him to secure it. 

Never repudiate a promise or engagement of any kind, but per- 
form what you have agreed to do, even at pecuniary loss to yourself. 
If you adhere strictly to this rule, it is evident that it will be necessary 
for you to beware of making rash or hasty promises. 

I had intended speaking to you at length upon the subject of 
engineering ethics, but time will not permit. It is a matter which is 
still in embryo. We have no established code of ethics in our pro- 
fession; consequently, until the solons who are now discussing the 
matter decide upon one, all that an engineer can do is to treat squarely 
everybody with whom he comes in contact, to try to make others 
happy whenever it is possible, and always to act according to the dictates 
of his conscience. 

No matter how small your earnings may be, always endeavor 
to save and put in bank a portion of them, for the money thus saved 
will assuredly prove useful some day. Avoid fancy investments of 
your savings and dabbling in projects that promise enormous profits. 
They nearly always fail, and the money invested is usually all lost, 
with occasionally considerably more. Engineers do not make good 
investors, because their attention is so devoted to their profession 
that they fail to obtain the necessary experience to care properly for 
their possessions. It is far better to invest in good first-mortgages or even 
government bonds than to sink your earnings in the most promising 
schemes. In this matter heed the advice of one who speaks from sad 
experience. 

If one is in the employ of a good, substantial, manufacturing 
or contracting company, it is well to invest at least a portion of his sav- 
ings in the stock and securities of that company, especially if these 
be offered at a low figure as an inducement to the young man to take 
an interest in his work. Such an investment tends to the employee's 
adyancement, and may eventually lead to a high official position. An 
excellent example of the good effects of such a system is given by the 
Carnegie Steel Company, most of the present officers of which started 
in at the bottom of the ladder in the company's employ, and worked 
their way up by becoming stockholders. In spite of all the talk one 
hears about soulless corporations, good, efficient, faithful, and willing 



WADDELL. 435 

service is nearly always recognized and retained; hence I would by 
no means discourage any young engineer from working for a large 
manufacturing company which employs civil engineers. 

Make a practice of studying true economy in your designing. 
It is far better to build a structure which is cheap and has no pre- 
tensions to permanency, rather than a quasi-permanent one that is 
cheapened by ignoring the first principles of design, and that will surely 
wear out or fail sooner or later on this account. 

The writing of specifications is one of the most difficult tasks 
that you will encounter in your practice. At first it will be best for 
you to adopt, if possible in toto, the standard specifications of older 
engineers, or use these as a guide in preparing your own, until such time 
as you can, produce some which will be better than any others. Don't 
make changes, though, for the sole purpose of producing something 
original, but only for the sake of effecting improvements. Specifica- 
tions should be clear, concise, complete, and free from all unnecessary 
repetition. 

Study the science or art of systemization, for it will aid you ma- 
terially in your practice. If it be not improper in an address of this 
kind for the speaker to quote from one of his own published works, I 
would like to repeat the following from the chapter on "First Principles 
of Designing" in my "De Pontibus": 

"The systemization of all that one does in connection with his 
professional work is one of the most important steps that can be taken 
towards the attainment of success." 

If you have the opportunity, do not fail to take post-graduate de- 
grees or any other degrees or professional distinctions that are within 
your reach. They cannot possibly do you any harm, are a source of 
great satisfaction to the recipient, and carry weight with most of the 
men whom one meets. 

I may get into trouble by stating it, but I am firmly convinced that 
early marriage is not conducive to a successful career in engineering, 
for the reason that it confines a young man too much to one locality and 
causes him to strive for the almighty dollar rather than for ultimate 
professional advancement. 

And now before closing there is possibly an apology due my hear- 
ers for the marked personality of this address. If so, please consider 
the same made most truly and humbly. In writing it, I felt that I 
could get nearer to you all by referring occasionally to my own experi- 
ence, dropping all formality, and speaking from the standpoint of a 
brother engineer, nor do I think that I have been wrong in so doing; 



436 ROSE POLYTECHNIC ADDRESS 

nevertheless I should not be surprised if I be criticized adversely for 
this, especially if my address appear later in print. 

By this time you all have probably come to the conclusion that you 
have been listening for the last half hour or more to an old fogy, who 
thinks that there is nothing in life worthy of consideration but work, 
work, work, and who can talk on nothing but technical subjects. If 
this be so, I by no means blame you, for you would seem to have reason 
on your side ; nevertheless you would be entirely in the wrong, because I 
am a firm believer in legitimate relaxation of every kind and in a man's 
getting all the pleasure he can out of life. Perhaps, too, I could talk 
of things that are far from technical, such as hunting the great game 
of the Rocky Mountains, canoeing on lake and stream, the shooting of 
rapids, travels in foreign countries, gunning for wild fowl in the marshes, 
sports afield with dog and gun, fly fishing for trout in the streams 
of the far North, and struggling with the gallant tarpon on the waters 
of the Gulf of Mexico ; but it was not to discuss such subjects as these 
that your President brought me here, consequently I shall desist, only 
remarking that the more you mix these things and other sports and 
amusements in with your work, the better will it be for you both physi- 
cally and mentally, the longer will you live, the more will you accom- 
plish, the more satisfactory will be the results of your work, the better 
men and citizens will you become, and the more interesting and agree- 
able will you prove to all with whom you are thrown in contact. 

Certainly mine has been a decidedly rambling discourse ; but I hope 
you will pardon this feature of the address for the reason that "scattered 
shot hits most birds," hence perhaps I have bagged several of you with 
some of my pellets ; while, had I used a choke bore by adhering stead- 
fastly to one subject, I might have missed my aim altogether, or at best 
succeeded in capturing only one individual. 

In conclusion I beg to say, gentlemen, that it has given me sincere 
pleasure to meet and address you; that if in the future I can serve you 
either collectively or individually, I shall be at your command; that I 
hope some of my remarks may some day prove of benefit to you, and that 
I wish for each one and all of you the greatest satisfaction in life — 
a truly successful, professional career. 



GRADUATE STUDY AND RESEARCH. 
By 

Dr. Chas. H. Benjamin. 

In the seventh paper of this series Mr. John Lyle Harrington 
deals at length with the question of the ''Necessity for Continuing Study 
after Graduation," and shows conclusively that the graduate engineer 
cannot reach any eminence in the profession unless he continues his stud- 
ies after the completion of his technical course. 

The present paper by Dr. Benjamin, who is Dean of the Engi- 
neering Faculty at Purdue University, supplements most forcibly all that 
Mr. Harrington has said, although it is addressed primarily to those 
specializing in engineering education. As quite a large percentage of 
technical graduates spend at least a portion of their professional careers 
in teaching, the reproduction here of Dean Benjamin's valuable paper 
ought to prove well worth while. 

Charles H. Benjamin was born at Patten, Maine, August 29, 1856, 
and received his earlier education at the Patten Academy, one of those 
state-endowed institutions which preceded the free high school. After 
having served an apprenticeship of three years as machinist in the shops 
of Benjamin and Allen at Oakland, Maine, he entered the University of 
Maine, taking a special course in Mechanical Engineering. Then, after 
a year or more of practical work as machinist and draftsman, he re- 
turned to the University in 1880 as Instructor in Mechanical Engineer- 
ing, becoming Professor in 1883, and remaining there three years longer. 
He received the honorary degree of M. E. from that university in 1881. 

In January, 1887, he accepted a position as Assistant Manager of 
the McKay Heeling Machine Association of Boston and Lawrence. 
Mass., having charge during that time of the factory and city offices of 
the Company and devoting considerable time to a review of patents on 
this class of machines. 

In 1889 he was appointed Professor of Mechanical Engineering at 
Case School of Applied Science, where he remained eighteen years. 
During his incumbency at that institution and also at the University of 
Maine, he had the opportunity of planning and building new shops fol 
the work in Mechanical Engineering. In 1900, he was appointed by the 
mayor of Cleveland, Ohio, as supervising engineer of the city, having 
charge of the installation of boilers and furnaces for the purpose of 

437 



438 GRADUATE STUDY AND RESEARCH. 

abating the smoke nuisance. He continued in this position two years, 
resigning on account of the press of college work; and in 1907, he was 
appointed to his present position at Purdue. 

In 1908 he. received the honorary degree of Doctor of Engineering 
from Case School of Applied Science. 

He is a member of the honorary societies of Tau Beta Pi and Sigma 
Xi; is active member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, 
the Master Car Builders' Association, the Master Mechanics' Associa- 
tion, the Western Railway Club, and the Society for the Promotion of 
Engineering Education; and an honorary member of the Cleveland En- 
gineering Society. 

He is^ author of "Machine Design" (Henry Holt & Company of 
New York), ''Steam Engine" (Technical Press), "Modern American 
Machine Tools" (Constable & Company, London), and "Moderne Ameri- 
kanische Werkzeugmaschinen" (Otto Spamer, Leipzig). 

He has devoted considerable time to original investigation, especially 
to the strength of materials, including the bursting of fly-wheels, steam 
engine cylinders, flat plates, emery wheels, cast-iron discs, and commer- 
cial pulleys of various types. Most of this material has been published 
in the Transaction of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. 

Editors. 



GRADUATE STUDY AND RESEARCH. 
By 
Dr. Chas. H. Benjamin. 

On first graduating from college, the young man is sometimes in- 
clined to believe that his education is finished and that all he has to do 
is to realize on his investment. If he goes into practical work outside 
of the University, he is soon disabused of this idea. Contact with men 
and things in the outer world has a tendency to convince him that his 
education is just beginning. If he can but succeed in establishing a 
connection between his college training and the requirements of his 
profession, he is fortunate. 

The best technical schools can only give the fundamental prin- 
ciples of science and engineering with but a brief attempt at application. 
On the foundation thus provided, the graduate must build his own super- 
structure and must adapt his style of architecture to his environments. 
If he has been educated and not ''filled up" or as one writer puts it, 
if he has been a "sponge and not a bucket," the building will be easy. 

For the graduate who leaves professional life and becomes a teach- 
er, the incentives to study and investigation are not so immediate. He 
is teaching the same things that were taught him and in about the same 
way. There are no outside pressure and competition to stir him and to 
spur him. The university wall and the college atmosphere deaden 
the sounds of traffic and bustle from without and leave him in a world 
of his own. Under such circumstances there is danger of stunted 
growth and dry rot. 

In the live, progressive sciences of to-day, there is no such word as 
rest. The information acquired in college, like the United States Con- 
stitution, must be a rudder, not an anchor. The close contact between 
our leading technical educators and the affairs of the outer world is a 
sufficient refutation of the claim that the instruction given in our col- 
leges is academic and not practical. When manufacturers, farmers, and 
business men in general come to the professors in the universities for 
the solution of difficult problems in their several lines of work, no argu- 
ment is necessary to prove the practical worth of college trained men. 
These men have not become what they are by simply floating along with 
the current and just keeping their heads above the surface of their 

439 



440 GRADUATE STUDY AND RESEARCH. 

every day work. The training and knowledge which command the 
respect of the practical man of affairs were not obtained in this way, 
but were the result of hard work and continuous application. 

Three requirements must be met by the university man who would 
have the confidence and respect of his compeers outside: 

1. He must have a broad culture to enable him to meet men on 
their own level. 

2. He must have a good store of information on all subjects in the 
line of his profession. 

3. He must know more than most other men in college or out of 
it, about some one thing. 

As John Stuart Mill put it, (rather strongly perhaps), "He should 
know something of everything and everything of something." To the 
overworked, underpaid instructor, this may seem too remote a mirage 
to be worth considering. But I want -to say to you right here that you 
must make this your goal; you must start on this way, for it is the way 
and the only way to professional salvation. When you spend from six 
to eight hours at the university each day and when you have lessons 
to prepare and papers to correct, it may seem that you have no time for 
further work or study. Be this as it may, your only chance to rise 
above the level of mediocrity is by independent study and research. I 
would not urge any man to overstep the natural boundaries between 
bodily health and ill health. Each must be his own judge of his physical 
limitations. Often a judicious admixture of physical exercise with men- 
tal application will enable one to accomplish the otherwise impossible. 
Systematic use of the time at one's disposal for work and for play will 
sometimes bring about astonishing results. If you have daily an hour 
or two hours at your disposal, it is remarkable how much and how little 
may be done in this time accordingly as you use it systematically or 
recklessly. 

There comes a time in nearly every man's life when he finds that 
he can not keep up to concert pitch all the time, — that he must let the 
strings down a part of the day and relax a bit. To some men this comes 
at forty years of age, to some at fifty, and to some apparently not at 
all. The really hard work and close study must be done before this 
time and it is up to the younger man to do it. Now, what is there to 
be done and how is one to do it? If you are interested in your pro- 
fession, you soon find something in your work which attracts you and 
about which you want to know more. If you do not, something is 
wrong ; you may have mistaken your vocation ; you may not have waked 



BENJAMIN. 441 

up yet to its possibilities ; or you may have been indifferent. When 
you find this thing that attracts you, study it in your spare time; go to 
the books in the library, to the files of periodicals and find what others 
have done. See if something has not been left undone that you can 
do, see if there is not some new avenue of approach as yet untrodden. 
Frequently men think and write about a subject for a long time and 
formulate new and ingenious theories without actually putting their 
formulas to the test. 



Most things are as yet undiscovered; and we are just chipping at 
the shell of the tgg. It may be for you to make a discovery which shall 
revolutionize theory and practice in some department of knowledge. 

Have a card index of your own where you may jot down in order 
references to articles in the scientific periodicals which interest you. 
No printed index will take the place of this ; such are too voluminous ; 
and, besides, the title of an article often gives no clue to the paragraph 
or the illustration which you want. 

Make it a point to visit the library once a week and skim the per- 
iodicals which appeal to you. Read an article when you can, but do not 
fail to sift them all and index what you may use at some future time. 
You must keep abreast of the rapidly advancing tide of thought and ac- 
tion in your line or you will soon become a mollusk in the sands of 
yesterday. 

Get in touch with your fellows in the campaign of investigation. 
Join one or two societies, attend a meeting now and then, and become 
personally acquainted with the men who are moulding opinion in scien- 
tific lines. When you have done something which is worth while, write 
a paper and present it at a meeting of your society. Be modest in your 
statements, sure of your facts, and firm in your opinions. 

Theories are like weeds — they grow best where there is no other 
crop. Facts, as determined by experiments, are more rare and command 
a good price even among experts. 

One who confines himself entirely to the narrow path leading from 
his boarding place to his class room becomes in time just an eating and 
teaching machine. Such narrowness of application defeats its own ob- 
ject: the teacher who knows only what is between the covers of the 
text- book is an unsafe guide. 

Character and reputation are the principal assets of the teacher, 
and the latter is the only one on which he can realize. 

[t is by graduate study and research and by the presentation of the 
results before scientific societies that the younger man becomes known 



442 GRADUATE STUDY AND RESEARCH. 

to the world. You may call this advertising, and so it is; but there is 
nothing disgraceful about advertising when you really have the goods. 
If a man has a horse to sell, he must go to market or advertise. 

I have not said anything about private libraries and I hesitate to do 
so. A good library is more to be desired than great riches; unfor- 
tunately, unless you have the latter, you may not possess the former. 
I should advise the younger man to go slow in the purchase of books, 
especially if he have access to a good reference library. Scientific books 
come high, and in many cases you have to pay for a lot of padding. 
When a writer collects a number of moss-grown formulas, stirs them 
up with an assortment of cuts and descriptive matter scissored from 
recent catalogs, and sells the result at $6.00 per, it is time for the buyer 
to stop and reflect. Buy only the books which you feel you must own ; 
and when in doubt, recommend them to the University librarian. 



THE NEED OF GRADUATE COURSES IN ENGINEERING. 

By 
Hon. Willard A. Smith. 

This address was delivered in February, 1908, at the installation 
of Dr. W. F. M. Goss as Dean of the College of Engineering of the 
University of Illinois. It is teeming with great thoughts and words of 
wisdom; and it cannot fail to meet the hearty approval and endorse- 
ment of all thinking men who read it. Although its author had prob- 
ably never seen the following address on "Higher Education for Civil 
Engineers", this discourse endorses the stand taken by the writer of 
that paper in making his plea for more extended technical education 
for the chosen few who are to advance the engineering profession by 
their scientific and technical researches. 

As Chief of the Department of Transportation Exhibits at the 
World's Fair in Chicago, 1893, Mr. Smith made the first transportation 
exhibit ever got together at any exposition. The work was entirely 
new and without precedent. A very complete graphic history of trans- 
portation in all its forms was made by means of models ; and actual 
examples were gathered at considerable expense from all quarters of the 
globe. The then "present state" of transportation was also illustrated 
by exhibits occupying a large building and considerable out-of-doors 
space. The importance of the department and its novelty are illus- 
trated by the fact that it was the only department of the exposition 
which was the subject of an entire book. (See Transportation Exhibits 
at the World's Columbian Exposition, 1893, by Jas. Dredge, Editor of 
"Engineering," London, Eng.) An important fact in this connection 
is that, for the first time, European locomotives, cars, track, etc., were 
shown alongside the American, so that the differences between them 
could be clearly seen and studied. English, German and French track 
and complete trains were secured by Mr. Smith by personal work in 
those countries, notwithstanding the fact that it had been repeatedly 
stated that the task was impossible of accomplishment. Mr. Smith also 
secured large and important exhibits of the engineering societies of 
Germany, of the British navy and merchant marine, etc. 

At the Universal Exposition of Paris in 1900, Mr. Smith was Direc- 
tor of Transportation and Civil Engineering for the Commissioner Gen- 
eral of the United States. He secured representative exhibits and ex- 

443 



444 GRADUATE COURSES IN ENGINEERING. 

pended large sums properly to represent to the European World Ameri- 
can engineering in its various branches. The awards secured were very 
flattering to the United States. As delegate of the Department of State 
of the United States Government, he represented this country in all of 
the engineering congresses held in Paris during that year. 

He accepted an appointment as Chief of the Transportation De- 
partment of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition at St. Louis in 1904, 
with the hope and for the express purpose of demonstrating the feasi- 
bility and value of testing locomotives on a stationary plant. After sev- 
eral failures to secure the large sum needed to do this, he interested the 
Pennsylvania Railroad Company in the plan. They expended upon this, 
first and last, the sum of $250,000. American and European locomo- 
tives were tested on this plant ; and the volume published by the Penn- 
sylvania Railroad after the close of the exposition attests the value of 
the work and its far reaching influence on the engineering of the future. 
The whole work was carried on under the advice and supervision of en- 
gineers appointed by foreign countries, and by the American Society 
of Mechanical Engineers and the American Railway ]\Iaster Mechanics' 
Association. The transportation exhibit at St. Louis occupied a build- 
ing covering sixteen acres of floor space and some additional space out- 
side. It hardly seems possible that a larger transportation exhibit will 
ever be made, or one with more lasting results on engineering. A de- 
scription and record of this exhibit were also published in the form of 
a large volume with over 700 original illustrations. 

Editors. 



THE NEED OF GRADUATE COURSES IN ENGINEERING. 

By 
Hon. Willard A. Smith. 

The world is constantly bidding higher for men of great ability 
and thorough training. Especially is this true of our own country and 
of the combination of the engineer and the man of affairs. Our enor- 
mous undeveloped natural resources, the wasteful methods which have 
prevailed, and the vastly increased returns from industry due to new 
methods and to more thorough organization, all tend to make the best 
ability the cheapest. The highest price has always actually been placed 
upon the man of business ability, the capable man, the man of tact, 
of initiative, and hence of mastery. This ability, which can hardly be 
described by a single word, is undoubtedly inborn ; there are those who 
never can possess it. Sometimes it is early in life, sometimes late, that 
this sort of man finds himself. We are pointed to these successful men 
as evidence that higher education and especially technical training are 
unnecessary; but it is seldom that one of them is found who does not 
concede that such education would have been of great value to him. 
Certainly the man most in demand to-day is the one who combines 
thorough training with natural executive or administrative ability. 

Engineering has had many definitions, most of which qualify and 
enlarge rather than actually define. In a very real sense we may speak 
of it as the science of economy, of conserving the energy, kinetic and 
potential, provided and stored up by nature for the use of man. It is 
the business of engineering to utilize this energy to the best advantage, 
so that there may be the least possible waste. Nature has stored up 
combustibles in the shape of coal, oil, and wood, the force of gravity 
in running or elevated water, the force of the wind, solar radiation, tidal 
power, and animal or muscular energy. These are the materials of en- 
gineering, to utilize which to the best advantage calls for the best 
preparation possible for the engineer to attain. With the lavishness of 
newness, little reckoning our rate of development and its terrible destruc- 
tiveness, we have gone on in this country along the lines of least re- 
sistance, until the end of some of these resources is almost in sight. The 
President has called a conference of the governors of the states to con- 
sider what can be done towards conserving the coal deposits, the forests, 
and the water supply, all of which are disappearing with startling rap- 

445 



446 GRADUATE COURSES IN ENGINEERING. 

idity. The common weal calls for engineers prepared to meet the 
situation, for men who shall know how to make every possible unit of 
energy useful by improved machinery and methods, who can substitute 
other sources of energy for those that are vanishing, and who can plan 
and organize a general policy looking to the largest immediate returns 
without sacrificing the future of the race. 

Our country calls for such men and they are needed in the councils 
of the nation. The business man has broken into the preserves of the 
lawyer in legislative halls and administrative offices. Why should not 
the "live-wire" engineer be there also? Why should he not be a maker 
of policies,- instead of a mere technician, retained to work disadvantage- 
ously under the direction of the incompetent? We sadly need in pub- 
lic affairs some of these qualities which he must possess and cultivate. 
The engineer must be an accurate man ; he must know his data and his 
formulae, and his calculations must be exact. He is needed in politics 
to combat its dishonesty and slouchiness of thought and method. The 
engineer must be honest with himself, a kind of honesty all too rare. 
These qualities fit him rarely for the consideration of problems of na- 
tional import which are not usually considered as engineering. The 
engineer's habits of thought, carried into political economy, may make 
of it a higher grade of engineering. Albert Fink, the great civil en- 
gineer, spent his maturest years in organizing and directing the railway 
traffic associations of the country, eliminating waste and dishonesty, and 
endeavoring so to unify the great volume of transportation that it might 
give the public the best service at the lowest cost, and yet permit rail- 
ways to make such earnings as to insure further development. In this 
work, he often told me, he was still the engineer. He had graduated 
from one life class to another, finally reaching, as he deemed it, the 
highest field of engineering. 

Such an engineer will not be content with simply estimating the 
constructive possibilities of any proposed physical development. He 
will examine into the actual necessities for it and the probabilities of 
adequate return, considering that the public money should not be sunk 
merely for the benefit of speculators and contractors or to promote the 
fad of a class of engineers. For instance, there is now before the 
country a proposition for the investment of enormous sums in the im- 
provement of waterways. These are advocated by three classes, men 
having an itch for figuring in the public eye, politicians seeking an issue 
to justify their existence, and engineers interested in the technical fea- 
tures of the proposed work. So far as I can see, there has been no 
careful investigation of the traffic which can possibly be developed; and 
in most cases it is not only now an unknown quantity, but the conditions 



SMITH. 447 

for future development are utterly lacking. Ought not the ideal engineer 
to be an economist who shall dare to say when engineering development 
ought not to be undertaken as well as when it ought? 

Among modern conditions which are changing the aspects of life 
and calling for higher engineering, I may mention the increasing con- 
gestion of people and traffic in large cities. All of the efforts to pro- 
vide adequately for this, by building on the surface, overhead, and un- 
derground, have failed to keep up with the increasing congestion. The 
problems of transportation, and indeed of life, in the great centers of 
population offer an ever-opening and expanding field. Higher engineer- 
ing will some time bend its energies to plans for dispersing the activities 
of cities, rather than to devising means for increasing the problem. 

How shall we get the men to handle such problems? If the ma- 
terial is right, are they adequately started in life by the ordinary under- 
graduate course in engineering? In the elementary and secondary 
schools their effort has been dissipated and attention distracted by too 
many subjects and an entirely superficial teaching. They come with no 
habit of accuracy of thought or adequate comprehension of its import 
ance. It is well if this can be instilled into them in the four years of 
undergraduate class-work; and if at the end of this course they are be- 
ginning to know themselves. This, for most, will end the student prep- 
aration. The genuine engineer, like the genuine man in any walk of 
life, will be preparing all his life. Each achievement he will value 
not merely for the wealth or glory it brings him, but as a preparation 
for something beyond. He who has got through all preparatory w^ork is 
dead. I am convinced that the best results from a graduate course 
would come if a few years of practical experience intervened after 
graduation. That, however, will be subject to individual conditions, and 
will not influence the course itself. It is only in the graduate course 
that the true university methods, which have proved their value for 
men, can be employed. I take it for granted, also, that the graduate 
course will involve a correlation of such subjects as political economy 
and administration ; so that it will start the student fairly on the road to 
that higher engineering career which I have endeavored to outline. A 
career is for "those who prove leaders, who occupy, sooner or later, 
positions of responsibility, develop their own methods, and may claim 
credit for the results achieved." It is something above the mere busi- 
ness or professional life. 

In the graduate school it is possible to make a study of each in- 
dividual student. Dr. Harper said, "Every student should be treated 
as though he were the only student in the institution." There also 
the faculty, relieved from much of the drudgery of instruction, may 



448 GRADUATE COURSES IN ENGINEERING. 

carry on that equally important, nay, most important, university work, 
research and investigation, a work of unlimited public value of itself, 
and affording an inspiration, otherwise unobtainable, to the entire school. 
The modern university is properly gauged as much by the studies and 
productions of its head professors as by the men it turns out from the 
graduate courses. 

We have not yet as a nation arrived at any plan which insures that 
the country's affairs shall be conducted by the fittest men. Toward that 
goal we trust we are tending slowly, but amid constant. discouragement. 
One constant forward movement is in the university work of supply- 
ing men who are fitted to be leaders. Engineering education has been 
almost the latest to enter the university field and take its place along 
side the older schools. It has justified its assumption of an equal rank 
by what it has done so far. This higher step, taken in due time, is re- 
quired if it is to maintain its dignity and enter the open door which has 
been set before it. 



HIGHER EDUCATION FOR CIVIL ENGINEERS. 

By 
Dr. J. A. L. Waddell. 

This address was delivered in April, 1904, to the Engineering 
Society of the University of Nebraska. While it was written specially 
for presentation to engineering students, the subject is one that ap- 
parently is better fitted for an address to engineering instructors ; never- 
theless its author, made no mistake in preparing it; for quite lately 
Prof. Geo. H. Morse of that University stated in print that "To Dr. 
Waddell's lecture, delivered before the Engineering Society of the 
University of Nebraska, on 'Higher Education for Civil Engineers' 
may be traced the inception of the six year engineering course in this 
University." 

That the author's idea of a great post-graduate school for engi- 
neers was not in the nature of a pipe-dream is shown by the fact that 
within a short time there has been established at Harvard University 
a post-graduate school of engineering. 

Editors. 



44>i 



HIGHER EDUCATION FOR CIVIL ENGINEERS. 

By 
Dr. J. A. L. Waddell. 

Young Gentlemen: 

The subject of my remarks to-night is "Higher Education for Civil 
Engineers.'' Perhaps it is not the most suitable topic possible for an ad- 
dress to an assemblage of undergraduates, being more appropriate for a 
meeting of the Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education; 
nevertheless, I trust that it will interest you, for it treats of a matter of 
vital importance to the engineering profession, of which you are soon to 
become members. 

It has been my good fortune and my pleasure often during the last 
twenty years to meet and lecture to the undergraduates of engineering 
schools ; and on such occasions when the address was of a formal nature 
I usually confined my remarks to advice concerning young men's work 
both at the technical school and during the early years of practice. My 
reason for departing from this custom to-night is that I have about ex- 
hausted that subject, and do not desire to repeat myself. 

********** 

In connection with my subject the first question that is likely to 
enter your minds is whether any education higher than that now given 
to civil engineering students in the leading technical schools is really 
necessary or advisable. To this I answer "Yes — most decidedly yes." 
Perhaps a few of the engineering educators will disagree with me; but 
I know that some of the leading ones do not. 

On this question I ought to be an authority; for not only does my 
firm employ constantly new graduates of technical schools from all over 
the United States as well as from Canada and Japan, but during my 
travels, which average in amount about fifty thousand miles per annum, 
I meet a great" number of engineers with whom I discuss such matters 
as technical education. Nearly all of them have complaints to make con- 
cerning the deficiencies in the training of the recent graduates of tech- 
nical schools. 

By this they do not mean to convey the idea that engineering educa- 
tion has been deteriorating. Far from it! For the old engineers all 
recognize that since their college days great improvements therein have 

451 



28. 



452 HIGHER EDUCATION FOR CIVIL ENGINEERS. 

been effected, especially during the ten years that have elapsed since the 
inauguration of the Society for the Promotion of Engineering Educa- 
tion, to which most of this advancement is due. 

But, great as may have been the strides in engineering education, the 
advance of the science and art of engineering has been far greater; and 
this divergence of progress is steadily increasing. The mass of technical 
literature which is of value to engineering students is now immense, and 
is constantly augmenting ; while in my student days it was difficult to find 
enough good technical works to furnish us with proper text books for 
our course. Because of this accumulation of valuable engineering liter- 
ature it is practicable to-day to give far better technical courses than 
were possible formerly; but the possibilities of improvement are by no 
means limited to results obtainable from the increased and improved 
engineering literature, as the latter is always of necessity far behind 
engineering practice. 

While it would, no doubt, be impracticable to give engineering 
courses so closely in touch with current practice that they would make 
the students perfectly familiar with all of the latest developments in en- 
gineering, still it is possible for the faculty of a technical school to 
approximate to this desideratum by launching out ahead of the techni- 
cal literature and securing for their students the latest information 
directly from practicing engineers. This procedure is certainly the 
most effective one possible for advancing the interests of engineering 
education. 

It may be claimed that those engineers who complain of the insuf- 
ficient training of recent graduates are merely cranks who are asking 
for the impossible, and that they would not be satisfied with any at- 
tainable training; but this is not true. Those of them whom I have in 
mind just now certainly stand at or near the head of the profession, and 
are reasonable, practical men. Complaints of this kind are not made 
ill-naturedly ; but merely to state existing conditions that require better- 
ment. Moreover they are a good thing for our profession ; because if 
there were no tendency for the practicing engineers to make such com- 
plaints, it would indicate that perfection has been reached in the tech- 
nical schools, which is certainly not the case. 

Having spent six years of my life in teaching civil engineering, I 
naturally take an intense interest in everything relating to the develop- 
ment of the pedagogical branch of our profession ; and I make a point of 
meeting the professors of civil engineering whenever I can during my 
travels. In conversation with these gentlemen I often suggest im- 
provements and reforms in technical education ; and they nearly al- 
\\^ays .agree that my suggestions are good but state that there is not 



WADDELL. 453 

sufficient time available for their adoption. That this is generally true 
I know only too well. Seventeen years ago in an exhaustive paper on 
Civil Engineering Education I advocated the adoption of five-year 
courses in civil engineering, and I have been harping upon that idea ever 
since. The time is surely coming when all first-class courses in civil 
engineering will occupy five years ; and the day for inaugurating this 
change is not far distant. Its approach is heralded by the post-graduate 
courses that are becoming so common in technical schools ; and the next 
advance will be to make these courses obligatory instead of optional. 

Probably the first institution to inaugurate this change will be 
McGill University ; for, unless I am decidedly mistaken, the faculty of that 
school is bending its energies toward the accomplishment of this pur- 
pose. It will then seem odd to see Canada leading the United States 
in such an important matter as engineering education. In truth, I am 
almost convinced that such is the case to-day; for the engineering 
course at McGill has for some time been rapidly and steadily improving. 
This much I can vouch for — the course in bridges is far in advance of 
any similar course given in the United States, or for that matter any- 
where else in the world. 

One objection raised to increasing the length of engineering courses 
to five years is that such action would work a hardship on many worthy 
young men of scant means and would render it impracticable for them 
to secure a technical education. Such a plea is a fallacy ; for young men 
would still find some school where four-year courses are given ; as to-day 
there are institutions where engineering is taught in three years. Again, 
if an impecunious young man can raise the money required for taking 
a four-year course, by a little extra effort he can probably raise enough 
for a five-year course. Moreover, it is constantly becoming easier for 
poor but worthy young men to secure financial aid in obtaining educa- 
tion. 

Here let me digress a moment to make the statement that there is 
no better way for a financially successful man to aid mankind than by 
helping ambitious young men to secure thorough, practical education. 
Nor need such aid be given in the form of charity; for if the young 
man be honest as well as capable and energetic, the money can be lent 
instead of given him; and for several reasons the former method is de- 
cidedly better, principally because it does not injure the recipient's 
self-respect. By accepting notes at the current rate of interest for all 
moneys advanced and securing the loan by life insurance, the possi- 
bility of loss to the lender is reduced to a minimum. I have seen this 
method tried with fortunate results ; and I recommend it to those suc- 
cessful men who desire to help others by the use of some of their ac- 



454 HIGHER EDUCATION FOR CIVIL ENGINEERS. 

cumulated wealth. The satisfaction that they will experience in the 
success of their proteges will transcend that from any other invest- 
ment. 

Among the most important deficiences noted by practicing engineers 
in the recent technical-school graduate are inability to express himself 
correctly and forcibly in either writing or speaking, lack of all ideas of 
system, inaccuracy in computations, ignorance of money values and eco- 
nomics, slovenliness in drafting, ignorance of what a drawing should con- 
tain to make it complete and serviceable, failure to understand the prac- 
tical application of what he has studied in his technical course, and un- 
acquaintance with numerous little practical things that he ought to have 
learned. 

In commenting upon the current practice of instructing engineering 
students and its results, I desire you to understand clearly that my re- 
marks are absolutely of a general nature, and refer in particular to no 
one institution of learning. And I especially want you to bear in mind 
that I have no intention of criticising the work of your professors. Of 
this you will probably hold me guiltless, when I confess to you that, 
much to my regret, I have never had an opportunity to learn anything 
concerning the character of the work done at the Nebraska State Uni- 
versity. 

That the study of the English language is sadly neglected in our 
technical schools nobody is likely to deny ; for the English spoken by the 
majority of their graduates is atrocious; their letters are awkward, mis- 
spelled, and ungrammatical ; and their ability to write reports, specifica- 
tions, and contracts is practically nil. 

Why should such a sad state of affairs as this exist, and with whom 
lies the blame? These questions are not difficult to answer. 

The boys that enter technical schools are generally not well prepar- 
ed, and the study in which they are invariably weakest is the English 
language. Most of them from early association speak ungrammatically, 
and but few of them have had proper training in spelling, grammar, and 
composition. Even the special preparatory schools fail to provide proper 
training in these essential studies; and the waiving of entrance exam- 
inations to technical institutions for graduates of such preparatory 
schools augments the trouble. Most technical schools give, or pre- 
tend to give, more or less instruction in English; but the courses are 
usually confined to the Freshman year, and are looked upon by the stu- 
dents as of minor importance. The result is that they are neglected, 
and the boys make a point of studying for them only enough to pass; 
consequently, when it comes to writing anything original they fail to 
do themselves credit. 



WADDELL. 455 

The study of English should be continued throughout the entire 
technical course, and should be carried even into the graduating thesis, 
making its proper wording and grammatical construction essential for 
graduation. Too much stress cannot well be laid on the importance of 
a thorough study of the English language. Given two classmate grad- 
uates of equal ability, energy, and other attributes contributory to a 
successful career, one of them being in every respect a master of the 
English language and the other having the average proficiency in it, 
the former is certain to outstrip the latter materially in the race for 
professional advancement. 

Upon whom then lies the blame for this undesirable state of affairs? 
Primarily, it is upon the faculty for not insisting that the subject of Eng- 
lish be given as much consideration as any other subject in the entire 
course; and, secondarily, upon the students for their flagrant neglect of 
this vitally important study. 

Is it not generally acknowledged by all members of the profession, 
young and old, experienced and inexperienced alike, that the most emi- 
nent engineers are not those who have merely constructed large and im- 
portant works, but those who in addition have by their writings record- 
ed the results of their efforts and thus instructed others concerning how 
to undertake similar constructions? Such being the case, is it not evi- 
dent that a complete and thorough mastery of one's native language is 
essential to the highest professional success? 

Ponder seriously upon this matter, my young friends, and see 
whether you do not agree with me concerning the importance to each of 
you of a thorough and fundamental knowledge of your mother tongue; 
and if you do, take without delay the necessary steps to secure such 
knowledge. 

Both the teaching and the learning of systemization at school are 
certainly extremely difficult; nevertheless, a certain proficiency therein 
may be attained by the students, if the professor will lecture to them on 
the subject; but each student should endeavor to perfect himself by 
spending a portion of one summer vacation in the office of some engi- 
neer, contractor, or company that is noted for the effective systemiza- 
tion of its works and records. When there, not only should he master 
the subject in all its details, but also he should make full notes upon it 
for future reference. 

Accuracy and neatness in computation can be attained in the tech- 
nical school if the professors are themselves accurate and neat in their 
work, and if they will invariably insist on their students being so. Most 
young men think that if they understand the method of solving a prob- 
lem that is sufficient, even if the result be incorrect, and that it is a 



456 HIGHER EDUCATION FOR CIVIL ENGINEERS. 

waste of time to check and correct calculations. No greater mistake 
could be made. No engineer can be truly successful who does not have 
all the work for which he is responsible checked and counter-checked, 
preferably by independent computers ; and the man who fails at college 
to gather up all the loose ends and to make sure that no errors exist in 
his computations is not at all likely to develop into a careful and ac- 
curate practicing engineer. 

Some students think that at school there is no necessity for deal- 
ing with dollars and cents, leaving such material things for their sub- 
sequent practice; and too often the professors either tacitly agree with 
them in this notion or else fail to correct the error. 

Never probably since the days of the Pharaohs, when with slave 
labor those rulers built the great pyramids, has it been possible to di- 
vorce engineering from pecuniary consideration; and nowadays engin- 
eering, economics, and financiering are so closely allied that it is impos- 
sible to separate them on work of any magnitude. Consequently, the 
much despised but almighty dollar should make itself conspicuous 
throughout every practical course in an engineering curriculum. Stu- 
dents should be forced to prepare with each of their designs a com- 
plete and minutely detailed estimate of cost, and should be made to 
understand that this is one of the essential features of the course of 
instruction. 

A study of the principles of economics in all departments of de- 
signing is essential to every first-class course in civil engineering; and 
the students should be made to comprehend that the most successful 
engineer is he who can accomplish a certain result in a perfectly sat- 
isfactory manner with the least expenditure of money. Care should be 
taken to distinguish between true and false economy, and to instill into 
the students' minds the principle that the most economic construction 
is not that which at first costs least ; but that which will do its work 
for an indefinitely long time, and in which the first cost plus the cap- 
italized cost of maintenance and repairs is a minimum ; also that it is 
better engineering to build a cheap, temporary, yet perfectly safe struc- 
ture with the intention of replacing it later by a permanent one, than 
to construct a weak or scamped structure that has a false appearance 
of permanency. 

The character of the drafting done by the average graduates of 
technical schools is decidedly below par; and there Is no good excuse 
for this, because with very few exceptions, students can be so taught 
the mechanical part of drafting that their efforts would pass muster in 
the offices of civil engineers and contracting companies. The ability 
to make neat drawings immediately after leaving school may mean many 



WADDELL. 457 

dollars in the pocket of the young engineer, which otherwise would not 
find their way there; and in truth it may often prove the cause of his 
being retained in a competition for a position with otherwise better 
equipped men. Fancy work is neither called for nor desired ; but neat, 
plain work, especially free-hand, is of the utmost importance. 

Very few young engineers, and, truth to tell, not all old ones, ap- 
preciate how complete every drawing should be made and what written 
notes it should contain. In our office we aim not only to indicate on 
all drawings every measurement necessary for construction, but also to 
write on them all special instructions for the contractors and generally 
a condensed specification. Such drawings prevent the contractors from 
being able to excuse themselves for an error by saying "We did not have 
the specifications at hand when we were doing the work," or "The 
specifications are so voluminous that the clause pertaining to this 
special point escaped our notice." 

One of the greatest difficulties under which many engineering stu- 
dents labor is their failure to see the practical application of theory to 
actual engineering. The blame for this generally lies with the pro- 
fessors, who either are themselves ignorant of such practical application, 
or neglect to call the attention of their students to it. The remedy for 
the evil is to insist on the professors of technical schools being prac- 
tical engineers as well as good teachers. 

There are numerous little practical ideas, time and labor saving de- 
vices, and short cuts to results which a practical and experienced en- 
gineering professor can present to his students, and which will tend 
greatly to the amelioration of the characteristic greenness of the recent 
graduate when entering upon his professional career. 

In addition to the subjects covered in the usual curriculum of the 
civil engineering school there are others of great importance that are 
either given nowhere or are inadequately treated in a few of the schools. 
Prominent among these are the following: Political Economy, Law.. 
Business, History of Engineering, Oratory, Debating, Dictation, Speci- 
fications and Contracts, Graphics, Secondary Stresses, Economics, 
Science of Railroading, Geodesy, Least Squares, Instrumental Work, 
Architecture, Geology, Tunneling, and Dams. To this list might be 
added some other subjects which are often given, but which are cap- 
able of considerable extension ; for instance. Metallurgy of Iron and 
Steel, Harbors, Canals, River Improvement, Sanitation, Water Supply, 
Power Transmission, Highway Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, 
Electrical Engineering, and Reinforced Concrete Construction. 

Both lists are, no doubt, very incomplete ; nevertheless they are 
amply large to show that there are many important branches of our 



458 HIGHER EDUCATION FOR CIVIL ENGINEERS. 

profession which are either taught inadequately or are not taught at 
all in the technical schools of America. 

But — some of you will remark — '''Is it necessary for every engineer- 
ing student to learn all of these branches? Surely in his active career 
he will confine his attention mainly to two or three lines, and in conse- 
quence will not need much instruction in the others !" 

To this I would reply, "Certainly, no man can specialize in many 
branches of engineering work; but the student of a technical school does 
not know for which lines he is fitted or which specialty circumstances may 
induce him to adopt. M'oreover, every specialty in engineering is more 
or less closely allied to all the other specialties ; consequently it behooves 
a broad-gauge engineer to become somewhat familiar with all branches 
of engineering so as to act intelligently when his business involves him 
in other specialties than his own." 

As an example of how the various branches of engineering are in- 
terwoven and allied, I would call attention to the facts that the bridge 
specialist in designing movable bridges always encounters mechanical en- 
gineering and sometimes electrical engineering; on the approaches to 
bridges he includes railroading; in the pavements of wagon bridges he 
touches upon highway engineering; in the protection of structures he 
meets with river improvement ; in the machinery houses of swing spans 
he includes architecture; in the guarding of bridges against fire he en- 
counters water supply; in the switches, signals, and interlocking plant 
for movable bridges he meets with a special department of railway work ; 
and in the testing of materials for superstructure he encounters chem- 
istry and metallurgy. That this statement is no exaggeration my pres- 
ent work will bear witness, for my firm is to-day engaged on the design- 
ing and supervision of construction of a number of bridges in which 
all of the lines of work just mentioned are involved. 

As another example, the railroad engineer encounters hydraulic prob- 
lems in bank protection and pumping plants, architecture and structural 
engineering in round-houses and other buildings, sanitation in station- 
houses, bridge work in the structures for his line, mechanical engineering 
in interlocking plants, electrical engineering in repair-shop machinery, 
and highway engineering where his line passes through large cities. 

Again, the hydraulic engineer trespasses on the ground of the archi- 
tect in his power buildings, and on that of the structural engineer in the 
steel roof-trusses for them, encounters mechanical engineering in his 
pumping machinery, and has to fall back upon chemistry in testing the 
qualities of water. 



WADDELL. 459 

There is no need for further illustration ; for enough examples have 
been quoted to show that all the main divisions of engineering are inter- 
dependent and inseparable. 

Now while it is eminently proper, and in truth necessary, for a 
specialist to call to his aid experts in other lines when his practice in- 
volves engineering in other branches than his own, it is highly inad- 
visable that he be absolutely ignorant of everything in those other lines. 
Surely he ought to understand the fundamental principles which govern 
the engineering work therein, even if he has to entrust the details to his 
associated engineers ! 

But how can a man become acquainted with all branches of engi- 
neering? Certainly not by attending the technical schools with their 
present curricula, nor by endeavoring to practice in the various branch- 
es. The brevity of life makes these methods impossible at present, al- 
though it might not have done so twenty-five or thirty years ago, when 
the amount of accumulated knowledge concerning engineering was ever 
so much smaller than it is to-day. 

It is true that but few young men would be willing to study 
enough to post "themselves on all of the main branches of engineering ; 
and in fact the large majority of the students of technical schools appear 
to believe that the shorter and easier the course leading to their de- 
gree the better for them. Nevertheless, there are almost invariably 
in every class a few who are eager to secure a broad and thorough 
education in spite of all the labor involved in attaining it; and it is a 
matter of serious regret that such men cannot now accomplish their 
desire. 

Can there be evolved any means for enabling these young men 
to satisfy their praiseworthy aspiration? Yes; and later on I shall 
indicate it to you ; but first let us consider what can readily be done 
to make more practical and thorough the courses given today in the 
principal technical schools. 

Much could be accomplished by raising the requirements for 
entrance so as to ensure that each member of the Freshman class is 
fairly well posted in English and the other studies usually included 
in an ordinarily good American education. He need not be a master 
in all these lines, but he should be well grounded in them. 

Again, a large portion of the present work of the Freshman year 
might satisfactorily be required for entrance to the course, and the 
time thus saved could be devoted to work now occupying the 
Sophomore and even the Junior years, thus leaving later on time for 
higher studies. More time, too, could be gained for this purpose 



460 HIGHER EDUCATION FOR CIVIL ENGINEERS. 

in many schools by omitting unnecessary studies from the curricula, 
notably the foreign languages. 

One of the most effective wa^s is to increase the. number of work- 
ing months in the year from eight or nine to eleven. This need not 
involve a hardship for either the students or the professors, because 
the summer months could be devoted to field work, which would 
afford rest for weary brains and would build up weak constitutions, 
while by employing more professors in the faculty the extent of 
each one's annual work could be reduced to any reasonable amount. 
The most effective method of all, however, is to increase the dura- 
tion of the course to five years. 

But all the additional time thus gained would not be sufficient 
to make each student a master of the theory and conversant with the 
practice in all branches of civil engineering, although the course that 
could be thus given would cover nearly twice as much ground as the 
average technical course at the present time. The strictly technical 
studies now occupy but little more than two years ; consequently another 
year, when the student's capacity for work is so greatly increased by his 
previous study, would probably double the technical, knowledge of 
the present graduate. 

Courses such as just suggested are going to be given in the not 
very distant future ; and they are in reality almost a necessity today. 
The rapid advances in engineering science are calling loudly for better 
prepared young men to fill for a short time subordinate positions, and 
then advance rapidly to places of trust and responsibility; and, as in 
all walks of life in this great country of ours, the supply is certain 
quickly to meet the demand. 

The method that I propose for the advancement of engineering 
education in America to the highest possible plane, and to enable 
the studious, energetic, and ambitious graduates of all technical schools 
to continue their engineering studies in both theoretical and prac- 
tical lines to any extent they may desire is as follows : 

Let one of America's multi-millionaires found and endow most 
liberally a post-graduate school of civil engineering, in which would 
be employed as officers, professors, and lecturers men of the highest 
talent in the country, irrespective of what it may cost, and let the in- 
stitution be established and equipped upon the broadest lines. There 
should be a comparatively small corps of permanent professors, but 
the principal instruction should be given by practicing engineers 
chosen from the best known and most competent in the profession. 
In order to secure them it might be necessary to reimburse them for 
their time even at maximum consultation rates. It would not do to 



WADDELL. 461 

make a practice of paying much less, as each instructor should be 
placed upon his metal in order to insure the best possible results 
from his work. In some cases this might not be practicable,- if the 
instructor felt that his work was something of a ''charity job" ; but 
if he were convinced that neither pecuniarily nor professionally would 
he be losing anything by teaching, he would be certain to put forth 
his best efforts and endeavor to teach each student as much as pos- 
sible of the best he knows. 

The function of the permanent professors would be to keep the 
various departments active at such times as the lecturers would be 
absent, and ensure that the students should always have some one to 
refer to concerning their studies and investigations. It should also 
be the business of the permanent professors to study current engineer- 
ing literature, and to excerpt therefrom and deliver in the form of 
lectures everything likely to be of real value to the students, as well 
as to call their attention to the articles which each one ought to read. 
They should also teach the student the knack of reading current 
technical literature so as to obtain its gist with minimum effort and 
loss of time. 

They should prepare a work discussing engineering literature 
that would include all technical books which are in accord with cur- 
rent practice, show their scope, and indicate their good and their bad 
points. This treatise should be re-written from time to time so as to 
keep it up to date. 

The permanent professors should also be required to translate or 
assist in the translation of all engineering books in foreign languages, 
which, in the opinion of competent experts, would prove useful to 
American engineers or to the students of the institution. 

The president or director of such a school should be the most 
broad-guage, profound, and progressive engineer in the entire country, 
and the governing body or trustees should look to him to see that the 
maintenance and development of the course of instruction are such 
as to accomplish to the utmost the great object of the school's existence. 

Original investigation by both the professors and the students 
should be provided for and encouraged in every way, and the results 
should be published in an official paper of the institution. These in- 
vestigations should be of an eminently practical nature and calculated 
to improve engineering practice or lead to valuable discoveries in 
technical science. A great testing laboratory, the most complete and 
perfect in the world, should be an adjunct of this institution, and Its 
constant use should form a part of the curriculum. 



462 HIGHER EDUCATION FOR CIVIL ENGINEERS. 

Designing should be the characteristic ^feature of the course of 
instruction, and should be employed in every course where its use is 
practicable. Nothing will teach a man a subject involving engineer- 
ing construction more thoroughly than the making of a complete and 
accurate design for some special case, unless perhaps it be the teach- 
ing of that subject to technical students. All designing should be 
done in the class room under the direct supervision of experts, and 
in the same detailed and thorough manner that is, or should be, 
characteristic of designing done in the offices of consulting engineers. 

One prominent feature of the curriculum should be the study 
of both pure and applied mathematics, not only for the purpose of 
refreshing the memories of the students and supplementing previous 
faulty instruction, but also in order to carry this study farther than is 
customary in technical schools. The main object of the course, 
though, should be to teach the students to do original mathematical 
work, thus enabling th^m to solve difficult problems in the highest 
branches of engineering. 

Another prominent feature of the course should be numerous 
visits by the professors and students, both together and separately, 
to works under construction, finished structures, and industries of all 
kinds; and special facilities for studying these should be arranged 
for in advance by the president or the governing board. 

No special length of time should be set for the duration of the 
course, but each student within certain reasonable limits should be 
given the privilege of choosing his subjects and the time for taking 
them. It would be well to arrange to give those who do a certain 
amount of studying at the institution certificates to that effect, and 
to those who pass a satisfactory examination in one of a number of 
prescribed courses the degree of Doctor of Science or Doctor of En- 
gineering, as the case may be; for the instruction given at such a 
school would certainly be as profound as that offered by any insti- 
tution of learning in the world; and those fully profiting by it would 
most decidedly be worthy of a doctor's degree. 

Let us now consider briefly some of the courses that I would 
advocate giving in such a post-graduate school of engineering. It is 
not my intention to try to make these suggestions at all complete but 
merely to outline some of the possibilities for extending engineering 
education. 

A knowledge of political economy is of great value to the civil 
engineer in his relations with the government (national, state and 
municipal), with capitalists and corporations, and with manufacturers. 

In acting for the government or in dealing with it a thorough 



WADDELL, » 463 

knowledge of its nature and functions, the extent of its control over 
constructions, the relation between its fiscal and engineering depart- 
ments, and its control over and obligations to the public, is essential 
to the successful engineer. 

In dealing with common carriers and other quasi-public corpor- 
ations, a thorough knowledge of their relation to the public, their 
responsibility to the government, and their organization and manage- 
ment, is of the greatest importance. 

The engineer for a manufacturing concern should be thoroughly 
conversant with the operation of the law of supply and demand, with 
the relations between capital and labor, with the theories of compe- 
tition, and with the organization of industries. 

All these things and many others that come under the head of 
political economy should be taught in the proposed post-graduate school. 

A general knowledge of law in its relations to contracts, organi- 
zation of companies, rights of corporations, and many other important 
matters connected directly or indirectly with engineering work is 
essential to the highest professional success. 

The fundamental principles of business should be taught to all 
engineering students, and they should be instructed carefully in re- 
spect to all such matters as stocks, bonds, and other securities, and the 
floating of same. Even such an elementary subject as the keeping of 
accounts should not be ignored. 

Concerning the history of civil engineering I need say nothing 
here except that it should form a part of the curriculum of every 
technical school. Possibly many of you know that I am making a 
systematic and determined effort to induce the Society for the Pro- 
motion of Engineering Education to undertake the preparation of an 
exhaustive history of civil engineering in all its branches. Thus far 
nothing has occurred to make me despair of success in the accom- 
plishment of this purpose. 

But few technical men are fluent speakers, and as it is often the 
engineer's province to persuade capitalists into the undertaking of enter- 
prises, or to argue in the defense of one's rights in competition or of 
those of one's clients in legal controversies, a knowledge of oratory and 
experience in debate must be of great service in one's professional career ; 
consequently, the study and practice of these matters should be given 
due attention in the proposed post-graduate school. 

The ability to dictate readily to a stenographer well expressed 
letters, descriptions, contracts, and specifications is enjoyed by very 
few engineers, and these few did not obtain their knowledge of this 
accomplishment at the technical school, but through a long continued 



464 HIGHER EDUCATION FOR CIVIL ENGINEERS. 

effort, much patience, and numerous discouragements. Every engineer- 
ing student should be drilled in dictation until be becomes proficient. 

The writing of first-class specifications and contracts is an art 
that cannot be acquired except through experience; nevertheless its 
acquisition can be hastened materially by a thorough drill at the tech- 
nical school in the underlying principles of such writings, as well as 
in the practice of their composition. 

In American schools of engineering the study of graphics is con- 
fined almost exclusively to the, determination of stresses in framed 
structures; but in Europe it is carried much farther, entering into 
almost all kinds of computations. The graphical calculations of a high- 
ly educated German or Swiss engineer are beautiful to contemplate; 
and although it may not be advisable to utilize graphics in practice to the 
extent that these foreign engineers are inclined to, nevertheless, in my 
opinion, American technical schools have much to learn in this par- 
ticular from those of Continental Europe. On this account it would 
be well to include in the proposed curriculum an elaborate course in 
higher graphics. 

The subject of economics is one that is intimately related to every 
branch of civil engineering, and its importance is such that not only, 
as previously stated, should it receive due attention in the study of 
all such branches, but also it is deserving of a special course, in which 
its relations to all important professional and business affairs are ex- 
pounded. 

Few American engineers pay much attention to secondary stresses 
in framed structures, but European engineers are trained on their 
theory; and while it is true that the best way to treat secondary stresses 
is to avoid them in one's design, still a comprehensive knowledge of 
their cause and magnitude would enable one to do so to far better 
advantage; hence a course in their theory should be given in our post- 
graduate school. 

As far as I know, the science of railroading is not taught in any 
technical school, the elementary principles and practice of surveying 
and construction constituting the extent of the course in that subject. 
The science of railroading pertains to more abstruse subjects, such as 
the adjustment of grades and curves to traffic; the laying out of ter- 
minal yards for economical handling of cars ; the reconstruction of 
cheap roads so as, with minimum interruption of traffic, to change 
them into first-class trunk lines ; the economic maintenance of track 
and rolling stock; the relations that motive power, car equipment, 
rails, ties, ballast, speed, and volume of traffic bear to each other; and 
how changes in any one of these features affect the rest. A thorough 



WADDELL. ' 465 

course in all such details of railroading would be of great value to the 
student and of the utmost importance to the railroad system of the 
country. 

The true science of bridge design does not receive much atten- 
tion in technical schools, or at least it is only its elementary features 
that are treated. The reason for this is not lack of proper books, biit 
want of time. In our post-graduate school there should be given a 
course in bridges far surpassing in extent, thoroughness, and ex- 
cellence any course on the subject yet given or even contemplated. 
The new types of steel-and-concrete bridges should not only be cover- 
ed in the course; but also the permanent professors both by experi- 
mentation and mathematical investigations should establish a proper 
theory for the designing of such structures. Substructure and founda- 
tions should be treated much more elaborately than is customary^ in 
other technical schools. 

The study of geodesy in both theory and practice, with the nec- 
essarily closely associated theory of least squares, should be given 
proper attention. 

A much more elaborate course in instrumental work and meas- 
urements of precision than is usual should form a part of this cur- 
riculum; and all the latest and most complicated types of surveying 
instruments should be described in the class room and used in the 
field. A student's knowledge of an instrument should not be consid- 
ered complete until he has learned to take it apart, clean it, put it 
together, and bring it into perfect adjustment. 

Measurements of precision, equal in accuracy to those perform- 
ed by the leading engineers on important bridge work, should be made 
by the students under the direct supervision of expert instructors. 

An elementary but complete course in architecture, especially as 
it relates to engineering constructions, should form a part of the 
curriculum; and special attention should be paid to aesthetics in de- 
signing. 

A sound, practical working course in geology, mineralogy, and 
allied subjects should not be omitted. 

A special course should be given on tunneling, and it should in- 
clude the designing of tunnels of all kinds to meet all possible conditions. 

There should be also a thorough course on the designing and con- 
struction of dams of every description. 

In the course on the metallurgy of iron and steel the student 
should obtain a thorough acquaintance with the mechanical processes 
and the chemistry of their manufacture according to the latest prac- 
tice; and a full description of all previous and abandoned methods 



466 HIGHER EDUCATION FOR CIVIL ENGINEERS. 

should be given, as a knowledge of what has been done in the past 
often saves a great amount of labor when an endeavor is made to im- 
prove upon present methods; and long disused plans are frequently 
re-invented at great expense. 

A knowledge of the action of iron and steel under the ordinary 
working conditions is essential to the proper use of these metals in 
designing. A general idea thereof obtained from a few tests and 
lectures, such as is commonly gained by the engineering student, 
serves principally to befog the mind of the young engineer, and leaves 
him wholly unprepared to handle problems involving rapid vibration 
or heavy shock. On this account the testing of these metals in various 
forms and under differing conditions should be included in the course 
of instruction. 

The designing and construction of harbors and canals of all kinds 
and the improvements of rivers under all possible conditions should be 
treated much more elaborately than is customary in technical schools; 
and hydraulic experiments with the latest and most improved types 
of current meters should be made by each student in the class. 

The important subject of water supply should be taught in full 
detail, and experiments on the flow of water in pipes and a study of 
bacteriology should constitute portions of the course. 

An exhaustive study of sanitary engineering and all its important 
features should be included as a part of the curriculum, and sewage 
disposal should be studied thoroughly by both professors and students 
for the purpose of effecting much needed improvements in that branch 
of engineering science. 

Power transmission by the latest and most economical methods 
should also be taught. 

Highway engineering should not be neglected, and the effect of good 
roads upon the development of a country or a district should be in- 
vestigated. 

No civil engineering curriculum is complete without elementary 
but thorough courses in mechanical engineering and electrical engi- 
neering; consequently there should be special departments for them in 
our post-graduate school; and the professors in these branches should 
endeavor to evolve a complete set of scientific principles for design- 
mg the details of machinery, corresponding somewhat in style and ex- 
tent to the principles that have been established for the designing of 
steel bridges. 

The advantages to be obtained by attendance at such a post-grad- 
uate school as the one advocated are almost beyond expression! A 
degree from such a school would always insure rapid success for its 



WADDELL. A67 

recipient. Possibly for two or three years after taking it a young engi- 
neer would have less earning capacity than his classmates of equal abili- 
ty from the lower technical school, who had gone directly into actual 
practice. However, in five years he certainly would have surpassed 
them, and in less than ten years he would be a recognized authority, 
while a majority of the others would be forming the rank and file of 
the profession with none of them approaching at all closely in rep- 
utation the more highly educated engineer. 

But if the advantages of the proposed school to the individual 
are so great, how much greater would be its advantages to the en- 
gineering profession and to the entire nation! After a few years of 
its existence there would be scattered throughout the country a num- 
ber of engineers more highly trained in the arts and sciences than any 
technical men who have ever lived; and it certainly would not take 
long to make apparent the impress of their individuality and knowl- 
edge upon the development of civil engineering in all its branches, 
with a resulting betterment to all kinds of constructions and the evo- 
lution of many new and important types. 

When one considers that the true progress of the entire civilized 
world is due almost entirely to the work of its engineers, the im- 
portance of providing the engineering profession with the highest 
possible education in both theoretical and practical lines cannot be 
exaggerated. 

What greater or more worthy use for his accumulated wealth 
could an American multi-millionaire conceive than the endowment 
and establishment of a post-graduate school of civil engineering such 
as I have tonight attempted to describe! 

Should this address of mine by reaching the eye of one of those 
multi-millionaires be the means of inducing him to endow such a school, 
I should consider its preparation to be the greatest work of my entire 
professional career! 



29. 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF ENGINEERING AS A PROFESS- 
ION IN THE UNITED STATES. 
By 
Dr. Charles H. Sn-ow. 

This address, issued since the appearance of our first edition, has 
been incorporated in the second edition for three reasons : 

First. It is quite different in style from nearly all the other ad- 
dresses, being of an historical nature. 

Second. It treats of a most important question, viz., specializa- 
tion in technical education. 

Third. It comes from the pen of one of America's leading technical 
educators, Dr. Charles H. Snow, Dean of the School of Applied Science 
of the University of New York. 

Specialization in engineering education is certainly a mistake ; be- 
cause an engineer to be thoroughly educated needs, primarily, a broad 
cultural course, secondarily, a thorough training in mathematics and the 
natural sciences, and, thirdly, a general education in all lines of engi- 
neering practice. To this extent, and to this only, are the Editors 
willing to concede on the subject of specialization in engineering edu- 
cation — the students in each of the four principal divisions of engineer- 
ing, viz., civil, mechanical, mining, and electrical, should go somewhat 
more deeply into the studies that bear most directly on the work of their 
own division, but at the same time they should be thoroughly founded 
on the fundamentals in all three of the other divisions. It is true that 
this cannot be done in a four years' course ; but it is now pretty generally 
conceded by the most advanced technical instructors that a thorough 
course in no line of engineering can be given in that length of time. 

Dean Snow touches incidentally upon another matter of great im- 
portance in the training of young engineers at college, viz., the all-too- 
prevalent tendency that exists among them to slight certain studies 
which they deem of minor importance or even as non-essential. How 
manifestly valueless is a student's judgment of what is and what is not 
essential to professional success! And yet how positive young men 
are in holding such opinions ! It is characteristic of the young Ameri- 
can to claim that he knows far more than his father, because the latter 
ic olfi fashioned and has not kept ui> with the advancement of modern 

469 



470 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGINEERING. 

times ; and the young college student carries this habit of thought to still 
greater lengths by claiming positively to know better about matters edu- 
cational than do those elderly men who have devoted their lives to try- 
ing to solve the very questions that this tyro has settled with the greatest 
ease and assurance. 

If each freshman student, as he begins his technical course, were to 
make up his mind that the curriculum of his school has, by long con- 
tinued development, been laid out so as to do him the greatest possible 
good in the time allotted, and would determine to neglect no studies 
whatsoever, he would save himself from making some serious mistakes 
that are likely to be the cause of deep regret in after life. 

Charles Henry Snow was born in New York City, March 24, 1863, 
and was graduated from Chapin Collegiate School in 1880, standing 
first in his class. Next he studied in New York University, taking there 
in 1886 the degree of Civil Engineer. In 1894 the University of Pitts- 
burg conferred upon him the honorary degree of Master of Science, 
and in 1898 he received from the same institution the honorary degree 
of Doctor of Science. 

Since his graduation in 1886 he has been actively engaged in sur- 
veys, explorations, reports, and other work as civil and mining engineer ; 
and in 1891 he was appointed acting professor of Civil Engineering in 
New York University, becoming Dean of the School of Applied Science 
in that institution in 1897. 

He is a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, the General So- 
ciety of Mayflower Descendants, the American Society of Civil Engi- 
neers, and the American Institute of Mining Engineers. 

He is the author of numerous valuable papers and books on the 
subject of wood. 

Editors. 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF ENGINEERING AS A PROFESSION 

IN THE UNITED STATES. 

By 

Dr. Charles H. Snow. 

The term "Civil Engineer" means ''Civilian Engineer," and is thus 
distinguished from "Military Engineer." Engineers were once almost 
wholly in government employ. We can imagine this of the builders of 
the pyramids, and we know that it was so in later times when engineers 
accompanied and sometimes commanded large armies, or, in times of 
peace, constructed fortifications or military highways. Other enter- 
prises, such as the occasional construction of aqueducts and bridges, in 
which art was to be associated with utility, were allotted to the architect. 
Civil Engineering was unknown. 

The latter period of engineering history began with the compara- 
tive cessation of warfare that followed the imprisonment of Napoleon, 
and with the introduction of the use of steam. In contrast with the 
former period, it is characterized by the need for and the encouragement 
extended to private, that is, civilian undertakings. 

It is necessary to distinguish between the situation as it was in 
Europe and as it was in this country at the beginning of the last century. 
In Europe, the accumulated works of centuries were, for the most part, 
simply to be subjected to further change. In North America, at a 
time when steam and other practical applications of science became 
available for the first time, vast territories were to be altered from a 
state of almost absolute wilderness, to meet the needs of a high and 
comparatively peaceful civilization. The European engineer had then 
to do with problems of improvement or development in localities 
where kings and armies were well nigh supreme ; the American engineer 
had to do with problems of creation in a land where armies were sec- 
ondary and where the government was by the people. 

The ranks of engineers in this early century were filled by grad- 
uates of military schools, or by office trained men, or by those whom 
circumstance had drawn into the field of constructive work and whose 
ability kept them there. Such men were fortunate, in that they lived 
when many practices were in their infancy. They did not have to attend 
scientific schools ; such schools did not exist. Progress became rapid 

471 



472 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGINEERING. 

and the facts to be classified so numerous that most engineers were 
obliged to give constant attention to the lines of work to which they 
had been drawn, and, as a result, many became specialists from the 
start. It was doubtless this tendency toward early specialization that 
led colleges to organize many kinds of engineering courses, each one 
teaching students very much as if for a separate profession. 

The degree of Civil Engineer was given for the first time, at least 
in any English-speaking country, at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 
1835, and, although civil engineering may have been introduced else- 
where as a study, up to about the year 1850 there were but two col- 
leges in the United States where students could qualify as engineers, 
namely. West Point and Rensselaer. At that comparatively late date, 
the calls for engineers were so few that Rensselaer is credited with a 
total of but 232 Alumni. At the same date, some 1500 men had been 
prepared at West Point, of whom 182 only had resigned to practice as 
civil engineers. 

The late Civil War marked the time of the first genuine activity in 
civil engineering work. The opening of the far West was associated 
with so great a demand for men that practically all of the leading 
American colleges were led at least to consider the establishment of 
engineering courses. Our records show that engineering was first sub- 
stituted for other subjects in New York University in 1855; but the 
engineering degree was not given here until 1862. From this time on, 
many kinds of engineering work were inaugurated throughout the 
country; and what may be called the eras of canal engineering, railway 
engineering, highway engineering, mine engineering, electrical engineer- 
ing, and sanitary engineering have been or are being passed through. 
In each period, the fulfillment of some need reached an apparent max- 
imum, and processes became more or less simplified. All institutions 
of learning, however, apparently did not distinguish between the trans- 
ient and the permanent — ^the foundation and the superstructure — dur- 
ing these formative times, since four year courses leading to degrees 
in railroad, topographical, canal, and other kinds of engineering were 
organized by a few of them and then abandoned. 

Specialization exists in engineering, but it belongs to the practi- 
tioner. Real specialists are not made by differences in college courses, 
but by time, circumstance, and adaptability. It is a significant fact 
that it is generally impossible to tell the kind of course or school from 
which the engineer of eight or ten years' experience was graduated. 
Practicing engineers have tended to segregate around four principal 
centers only, as is shown by the existence of the four great national en- 
gineering societies, and on this basis, engineering work is divided into 



SNOW. 473 

Civil Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Mining (including Chemi- 
cal and Geological) Engineering, and Electrical Engineering. These 
divisions include all others and are the only ones in which the average 
beginner need feel interested. It should be noted that even these divi- 
sions refer strictly to work rather than to men, since an engineer in 
charge of any operation must enter the limits of many fields in its 
prosecution. 

The tendency to prepare undergraduate specialists, fortunately, is 
diminishing, and will probably diminish yet more with the passage of 
time. You, as undergraduates, will do well to devote yourselves to the 
mastery of principles that underlie all of the branches of your profes- 
sion. This is provided for in the courses given you. These subjects 
may not interest you equally, but you will be benefited by everything 
that is presented to you. 

There are subjects that do not appear to be professional subjects, 
but which are so in the highest sense. For example, it may surprise 
some of you to learn that the success of the engineer is influenced 
practically as much by a knowledge of English as by a knowledge of 
Mathematics. Clients are not attracted by engineers who cannot write, 
spell, or express themselves correctly. All of the subjects that you will 
study are engineering subjects; and in this connection, let me suggest 
that for the present you attend to the duty of each day and that you 
do what there is to do as well as you can, regardless of whatever 
interest or preference you may feel. 

Further, remember that engineering is in no sense narrowly scien- 
tific; that the influence of personality is as marked as in other callings. 
A college course is only a tool; a man must be behind it. The weak- 
est arm is the better for the weapon, yet alertness, common sense, steady 
purpose, balance, integrity, far-sightedness, and the ability to get re- 
sults, are also needed for what the world calls true success. Let me 
urge you as Freshmen, and you, the members of other classes, to ad- 
vance your interests by trying to cultivate these qualities. 



THE STORY OF A LIGHTHOUSE. 

By 

Dr. A. J. Du Bois. 

Greatly to the Editors' regret, the manuscript of this paper reached 
them just too late for insertion in the first edition. However, they wel- 
come the opportunity to incorporate it in the second edition as an ex- 
ample to young engineers of the heights to which technical literature 
may aspire ; for this oration may well and truthfully be termed a "prose 
poem." It stands out boldly as a refutation of the claim so often made 
that the writings of engineers are of necessity dry, technical, and unin- 
teresting to laymen. The stirring words and noble thoughts with which 
the address abounds must appeal forcibly to the heart of every technical 
reader and stir him to the depths ; for it makes manifest in glowing terms 
the loftiness and grandeur of the "Profession of Engineer." Its dic- 
tion is a model of elegance and style, and the paper should long serve 
the engineering profession as an example of the possibilities of attain- 
ment in technical writing. 

Dr. Du Bois, who is well known, wherever the English language 
is spoken, as a technical author and teacher of the highest standing, has 
for many years occupied the chair of Civil Engineering at the Sheffield 
Scientific School of Yale University. His numerous works on bridges, 
graphics, and other engineering subjects rank among the best tech- 
nical treatises. 

Augustus Jay Du Bois was born at Newton Falls, Ohio, April 25, 
1849, and studied at the Sheffield Scientific School, taking the degree of 
Ph. B. in 1869, that of C. E. in 1870, and that of Ph. D. in 1873. He 
next studied mechanics for two years at the Freiberg Mining Academy 
in Saxony. 

From 1875 to 1877 he was professor of Civil and Mechanical En- 
gineering at Lehigh University, after which he occupied for seven years 
the chair of Mechanical Engineering at Sheffield, and since 1884 he has 
been Professor of Civil Engineering at the latter institution. 

Dr. Du Bois' thorough knowledge of the German language has en- 
abled him to translate and publish in America several important tech- 
nical German books which have been of great service to the engineering 
profession in this country. 

Editors. 

475 



THE STORY OF A LIGHTHOUSE. 

By 

Dr. A. J. Du Bois. 

"Arma virumque canoT 
"Arms and the man I sing!" 

Such was the introduction, many long years ago, of a great ]:)oet 
to his greatest work. And he did well to select as the subject for his 
muse that one theme which never can grow old so long as sun and 
moon endure — Arms and the man. 

Many years have passed since the poet wrote these words, and the 
earth has seen vast changes since ; but today, history and poetry, art 
and literature — ^Ay! and even science too — throb with the interest at- 
taching to that same old theme, the changes upon which have been so 
often rung, which has never grown worn through all the ages, which 
lives in every romantic tale and glows in every fossil, whose keynote 
the ancient poet struck with so sure a hand so many years ago, of 
DEEDS and men. 

Deeds and men ! Human achievement and human character ! 
These, in endless variation and iteration are the themes of which we 
never tire to read and think and tell — the perennial fountains whence 
we draw inspiration and drink fresh courage in our own humbler doubts 
and difficulties and dangers. History and poetry, art and literature — 
even religion itself — what is their interest to us ! except they speak 
to us of man — man in his relations to his fellow and to himself — what 
he has done or may do ; what he has thought and suffered and endured ; 
what he has been or may yet be. Talk as we may, and sometimes do, 
of the "love of knowledge for its own sake," the most abstract science 
offers to its most enthusiastic votary no other inducement, no higher 
reward, than the recognition and appreciation of those elements of 
human interest and human sympathy, which irradiate its dryest details 
and make its dry bones live again. Not only is the "proper study of 
mankind, man," but it is indeed his only study. Man in his trials and 
dangers and failures and successes ; in his weakness and his strength ; 
in his temptations and his triumphs — this is the study which appeals 
to every human heart ; which illumines and vivifies with light and 



477 



478 THE STORY OF A LIGHTHOUSE. 

warmth every pursuit in life, and adds to the dryest science the charm 
of human interest and the incentive of human example. 

As the stars in heaven derive an added interest from the fact that 
as they once shone and looked to the countless ages past, even so do 
they shine and look down upon us now ; so do the ordinary prosaic pur- 
suits and avocations of today — our daily toils, dangers, and trials; our 
failures and our successes; even our own fears and loves and hates — 
possess for us a special interest from the fact that from the beginning 
man's life has been but a tangled tissue of just such experiences as 
those which we encounter now. The scene and stage accessories may 
shift and change, but there is nothing new in experience under the sun. 
"Our feet tread ways our fathers trod," and in this community of 
sympathy, no story of human achievement, of human life, or human 
death but is full of interest, of encouragement, or of warning to our- 
selves. 

Upon this well worn theme of deeds and men we play our humble 
variation tonight. What though we go out of the usual beaten track 
to gather our examples ! Deeds are still deeds, and men are still men , 
whether they do manly deeds in oft told tales of crusade and chivalry, 
or sturdy yeoman service in the humbler sphere of daily life and duty. 
The interest may be none the less; the value may be quite as great; 
the heroism all the greater. "That is best which lieth nearest," saith 
the poet, yet our poets must seek far off fields from which to cull the 
flowers of romance — the farther and less known the better — and, so 
well have they done their work in their chosen fields, there scarcely 
seems a flower left to pick or a deed to tell. They climb the mountains 
and explore the very stars in their search for the new and striking, 
while all the while, in the peaceful valleys and along the margins of 
the quiet streams of daily life, in our very midst, there is many a lovely 
flower to reward their search, many a noble example or heroic deed 
—none the less noble or heroic in that it hides itself modestly beneath 
a stone or clothes itself in the workman's frock. 

Here then, is a field for the poet, the historian, and the painter, 
which has been all too little regarded — ^an almost virgin soil, which will 
well repay cultivation and which may yet furnish the epics of the future. 

The story of man's struggles — not with beast or fellow man, but 
with the mighty relentless powers of Nature — of his conquests, not in 
love or war, but of reason and intelligence — these are high and worthy 
themes which have waited long and still wait to find their chosen min- 
strel. Is there no inspiration here! Our greatest benefactors are not 
those of song and story. The tombs of our greatest warriors still wait 
for their inscriptions; and those great battle fields which have decided 



DUBOIS. 479 

the fates of nations and of civilizations have not been won by sword or 
spear. Brains count for more than muscle, and man's noblest victories 
are bloodless ones. 

Born into the world powerless, defenceless, the most helpless animal 
that sees the light, man has steadily and gradually subdued the forces 
of nature to his will. Skillfully and cunningly he pits them one against 
the other and makes them obedient to his bidding. He defies the winds 
and rules the waves and leads the lightning in chains of its own forging. 
His entire history but serves to illustrate the supremacy of mind over 
matter. It is in the exercise of this, his proudest birthright, that man 
is best exhibited, and offers to the poet and the historian the most 
worthy themes for study and contemplation. Not man in his weak- 
ness, the sport of circumstances and the slave of passion, but man in 
his strength — the ruler of Nature in the image of his God. 

Men and deeds then — but in a higher and more worthy sense than 
the ancient poet ever dreamed — ^shall constitute my theme tonight. I 
have to tell of no little Julius or wise and pious Eneas or aged Anchises 
— of sack and pillage and cunning manoeuvre — no mailed knights and 
floating plumes and martial music and soldierly deeds of blood and 
violence ! No swords Excalibur — no widow's tears nor ophans' curses, 
no savage and debasing passion, no rapine, murder, and sudden death ! 
No romantic nor questionable escapades form the subject of my story. 
My plain, unvarnished tale needs no such spice as these. But in all true 
elements of human interest; in bold unflinching courage; in energy 
and perseverance and noble indifference to danger when in the path 
of duty; in manly self-reliance and readiness of resource; in battle 
not with men nor beasts, but with the winds and waves; in resolute de- 
fiance,* not of the malevolence of man or demon, but of the fierce, unre- 
lenting, remorseless powers of Nature — hard knocks too. Ay ! and even 
heroic death — of these elements and such as these we have enough ; 
and these are elements which in every form and age and fashion, whether 
in romantic verse or the plain garb of humbler prose, must appeal to 
every human heart and awaken responsive sympathy in every human 
breast. 

To a simple story culled from this too long neglected field, let me 
then ask your attention tonight. I may not tell it as it should be told, 
nor make my words entirely good, yet the deeds I have to tell cannot 
but speak for themselves in tones which need no words of mine to 
point their emphasis. The men I sing have worked hard and well for 
small reward, for you and me, and dying, have left us in their characters 
a far better legacy even than their manly deeds. Of these let me tell, 
as best I may, and your appreciation and sympathy must do the rest. 



480 THE STORY OF A LIGHTHOUSE. 

If, now and then, I make some brief excursion, you will, I trust, 
extend to me the ''benefit of clergy," and at least will patiently allow 
me to ram home my dryest statements, with a more or less substantial 
wad of "personal application." 

The story I have to tell possesses, indeed, an interest almost 
dramatic in its character — a drama in which the actors are strong, 
skilled, determined men on the one side, and the tremendous forces of 
Nature upon the other. 

About fourteen miles S, S. W. of Plymouth harbor, lies a reef 
which needs no Lorelei to add to its fatal efficiency. Lying low down 
in the sea,- it slants its glistening spine to the rolling waves and fairly 
lifts them high into the air, dark green and capped with foam, solid, 
massive, and terrible ; while in and around its treacherous neighbor- 
hood the water boils and eddies and surges to and fro, when current 
meets countercurrent, as in a mighty caldron. However calm it may 
be elsewhere, here there are constant turmoil and ceaseless roar; and in 
these raging seas hundreds of vessels have been dashed to pieces almost 
within sight of land and safety. 

Such is the reef called the " Eddy st one'' ; and while seeking to 
avoid its fatal neighborhood, many a luckless mariner has gone from 
Scylla to Charybdis and met the very fate he feared among the Islands 
of Jersey, Guernsey, and Alderney, and upon the coast of France. In 
every storm that terrible reef made good its fatal reputation, and 
strewed the shores of Plymouth Sound with wrecks and corpses. Like 
the fabled monster of old, it crouched just beyond the city walls, and 
every year it levied upon the panic stricken inhabitants its fearful tax 
of blood and treasure. 

Then, as in the fable, Perseus came. Our modern Perseus had 
neither polished shield, nor magic sword, nor winged sandals. No gifts 
from the gods were his, save his clever hands, resolute will, honest 
heart, and ready brain. No youthful hero with ambrosial curls; but 
a rather bald, somewhat portly, plain, middle-aged, well-to-do country 
gentleman and mercer, or merchant tailor, of Littlebury, County of 
Essex — ^very unassuming, and, for the sake of the ladies, I grieve to 
have to say it — probably not even "good looking!" Rather prosaic 
stuff for a hero this ! But this modern hero stood upon Plymouth Hoe 
one day, perhaps upon the very spot where Drake once stood, when 
the Spanish Armada was first descried making for the English Coast, 
and looked out to sea like Drake, but with a very different object. In 
the rain and the sleet and the wind, his cocked hat slouched over his 
eyes, the rather voluminous, not to say "baggy" clothing of those days 



DUBOIS. 4&1 

flapping in the gale, with one eye shut and a glass at the other and 
his legs astraddle, looking anything but the conventional hero of poet 
and drama — behold the modern Perseus! Smile at the description if 
you will, but such in all probability was the entrance of a veritable hero 
and genius upon a drama which was to close only with his life, and in 
which his manly part was to hand down his name to admiring gener- 
ations. No carpet knight, this ! No nursery hero ! No soft-handed, 
softer-headed young ladies' heau ideal! No poetic and romantic figure, 
with flush of youth and bravery of trappings, and celestial backing to 
see him through without a scratch ! But a resolute, determined man, 
alone in the wind and the storm, terribly in earnest, and animated by 
as pure a spirit of self-sacrifice, as high an ambition and as noble a 
desire for the good of his fellow creatures, as any of the more brilliant 
creations of minstrel or poet ! His story possesses, moreover, an interest 
which theirs too often lacks — it's true! Beneath that plain exterior 
there lay a stout heart and as stout a will ; and as he calmly leveled 
his glass and squinted out to sea, he was revolving, like Ulysses of 
old, "great things within his mind." 

He looked out toward this insatiate monster, which had robbed him 
of two fine ships, and saw it dashing the waves in its savage glee high 
into the air from its dripping back, and heard that terrible roar which 
had been the death knell to so many gallant souls; and in the midst 
of the din and uproar of the elements, which seemed to laugh and mock 
at human weakness, he stood and looked over the dismal fourteen miles 
of rainy sea, and quietly resolved to devote what remained to him of 
fortune and of strength, in the unequal battle, and, if it might be, to 
demolish the tyranny of this "rock of destiny." Was ever greater con- 
ceit! Alone, unfriended, the little man in the cocked hat had entered 
the lists against the most destructive power known to man. No man 
had ever dared to tread that way before. He knew no similar examples 
from which to draw encouragement or warning. The monster shrieked 
defiance and derision and foamed with rage and scorn, but Winstanley 
of Littlebury calmly and quietly went to work. The mouse versus the 
lion ; the spider against the bear ; the man against the rock ! He asked, 
and got, no aid from a churlish government, though engaged in the 
most unequal battle ever waged by man for the common weal. Still 
he worked on. Men laughed and jeered at the enthusiast, the fanatic, 
the man who dared to fight the Almighty. Still he worked on. He 
heeded their mockery as little as that of the winds and waves, and 
quietly went his way. And now began the battle of the rock and the 
man, of mind and matter, of brute force and brains; and into the Her- 



482 THE STORY OF A LIGHTHOUSE. 

culean contest Winstanley threw all his property, his dauntless energy, 
and, ere the close, his life itself. 

Whenever we find a great man taking advantage of a great op- 
portunity and rising equal to a great emergency, we find invariably that, 
consciously or unconsciously, generally the latter, he has been prepared 
for that emergency and that opportunity — prepared by training, by 
character (which is the outcome of training), by experience, by study 
and special knowledge: and these all contribute to his success. There 
is no such thing as luck in such matters. "Fortunate combination of 
circumstances" there may be, but if the man is not ready to profit by 
the combination, the combination will never come for him. There may 
be a tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood leads on to 
fortune, but if the man can't swim, the ebb will surely leave him high 
and dry upon the shore, still fearing to take the plunge and railing at 
the "luck" of those who have dared to. Opportunities! why they lie 
all around us, to-day and every day, waiting for us, inviting us, im- 
ploring us to seize and to utilize them. And when now and then the 
man does come, who yokes them to his will and rides upon them to 
success, what a host are always ready to cry out upon his "luck," as 
though, forsooth, he has stolen their thunder! 

What special qualifications had Winstanley for the unequal strife 
which now commenced? The question Is pertinent, for without such 
qualifications his great resolve would have Deen, what it then seemed 
to so many to be, but ignorant conceit, and his great opportunity have 
only led to as signal a failure. 

Winstanley was what we call now-a-days a "born mechanic." Be- 
sides his property, which was considerable for those days, and the 
gifts of the gods of brain and heart and hands, he had a passion for 
mechanics — a hobby which his prosaic employment could not cripple, 
and which he rode incessantly to his own satisfaction and to the great 
discomfiture of his friends. Smeaton tells us that "he had at his house 
at Littlebury a set of contrivances, such as the following: Being taken 
into one particular room in his house and there observing an old slipper 
carelessly lying in the middle of the floor, if, as was natural, you gave 
it a kick, up started a ghost before you. If you sat down in a certain 
arbor by the side of a canal, you were forthwith sent adrift to the 
middle of the stream." 

In these and like curious inventions Winstanley had passed his 
leisure, and useless as they appear, they sufficiently attest his genius 
and his tastes, and undoubtedly they developed a skill and ingenuity 
of contrivance and a readiness of resource, which were now to be 



DUBOIS. 483 

applied to worthy objects and to stand him in good stead in the hour 
of need. So true is it, that our very recreations may tend to nourish 
or enfeeble our powers, give active aid in the execution of our duties 
themselves, and all unconsciously build themselves into the very fabric 
and tissue of our character. All unconsciously, in his hours of leisure, 
Winstanley had been preparing himself for the great opportunity and 
work of his life. Opportunity at last had found the man, and it found 
the man ready for the opportunity. His project, in the light of his 
experience, was no fool-hardy, quixotic scheme. It was well con- 
sidered. He had seen his foe and gauged his strength. He had meas- 
ured himself against the rock, had boldly entered the lists, and he 
meant to win! 

Four years the contest lasted. How shall I do justice to that 
terrible fight! How tell of the sufferings and privations, of the fort- 
itude and endurance, of cold and hunger and danger and death, of 
long, sickening delays and sinkings of heart, of alternate hope and 
despair, as with varying fortune — ^jeered at by his very workmen — 
the battle progressed ! Heedless of mockery, foremost in danger, un- 
dismayed by failure — here are a hero and a battle worth the poet's 
pen. Now the man would gain a slight advantage, and now the re- 
morseless winds and waves would tear down in one hour, with malicious 
glee and frenzied shrieks, the patient toil of months. Often, caged on 
that lonely rock, shut off from all human aid, dispirited by hunger 
and cold, the dauntless man looked death full in the face, and yet, in 
his own brave words, "trusting in God's assistance for a blessing on 
this undertaking, being for a general good, and receiving most in- 
expressible deliverances, I proceeded." 

The result of that whole first year — twelve dreary months of peril- 
ous labor, uncheered by sympathy and marked by disaster — was simply 
twelve holes bored in the solid rock. Twelve small holes of three inches 
diameter, and that was all ! That was all, but that was enough. The 
monster was then vulnerable. His hide was pierced. A foot-hold on 
that terrible rock was at last secured. It is the first step which costs. 
The rock at last had met its master. 

In these days of universal travel, when all good Americans go to 
Paris before they die — wherever they may go after — probably eight 
out of every dozen, within reach of my voice to-night, owe their lives, 
or the lives of those near and dear to them, to those twelve small holes, 
and the man whose determined courage sank them. Thanks to them 
and him, wrecks no longer line the shores of Plymouth Sound; the 
British Channel is now lit up along its whole extent, and is as safe in 



484 THE STORY OF A LIGHTHOUSE. 

the darkest night as in the brightest sunshine ; homeward bound ships 
from far off ports no longer avoid the dreaded rock, but eagerly run 
for its light as the harbinger of safety; and many a heart has leaped 
with gladness at the cry of ''the Eddystone in sight/' 

The work now went bravely forward. Encouragement and tardy 
sympathy began to come. The man was no longer a lunatic. There 
were even not wanting those who knew all along, "it was easy enough." 
They always ''thought so." They always "said so!" They were even 
ready with advice and assistance and suggestions. But the man w^ho 
had got along thus far without their assistance could easily dispense 
with their valuable advice. Thanks to those twelve small holes, the 
next year saw a pillar, 12 feet high and 14 feet in diameter, tied down 
and anchored to the solid rock. With this puny building the elements 
made their sport. The wind whistled round it in derision, and the 
waves dashed over it, literally submerging it at every swell. But the little 
pillar stood fast and gave not way, and every day it grew stronger and 
higher, and the patient, much-enduring man may have smiled in an- 
ticipation of final triumph, but he worked away indefatigable as ever. 
Let him tell his story in his own modest words. 

"The third year the aforesaid pillar was made good at the founda- 
tion from the rock to 16 feet diameter, and all the work was raised. 
Being all finished, we ventured to lodge there, soon after midsummer, 
for the greater dispatch of the work." We ventured to lodge there! 
I like to think of the unconscious pluck and daring in the simple words. 
Not three years past and the man is actually making his abode upon 
the rock! No wonder the bold challenge was accepted, and the winds 
and waves awoke to the fact that the despised intruder was getting 
over-bold and needed a lesson ! "The very first night," the report goes 
on, "the weather came bad, and so continued that it was eleven days 
before any boats could come near us again, and not being acquainted 
with the height of the seas' rising, we were almost all the time drowned 
with wet, and our provisions in as bad a condition, though we worked 
day and night as much as possible to make shelter for ourselves. In 
this storm we lost some of our provisions, though we did what we 
could to save them, but the boat returning, we all left the house, to be 
refreshed on shore, and as soon as the weather did permit, we returned 
again and finished all, and put up the light on the 14th of November, 
1698, which being so late in the year, it was three days before Christ- 
mas before we had relief to get on shore again, and were almost at 
the last extremity for want of provisions. But by good Providence, 
then two boats came with provisions, and so ended this year's work." 

It was a harbinger of good omen for the eighteenth century, that 
it opened with such a work as this; and the people, not alone of 



DUBOIS. 485 

Plymouth town but of all England, might well mingle thanksgiving 
with their rejoicings over Winstanley's Christmas gift. Seldom does 
a city or nation receive, free of all expense, such a royal gift — a gift 
in which ultimately all the world were to be sharers. For Winstanley, 
alone, unaided and in the teeth of ridicule and skepticism and danger, 
had shown the way and demonstrated the possibility of that which 
before was thought impracticable. Once proved that a house could 
be built and live at sea, and in such a sea, men and means were easily 
to be found to repeat the experiment and cause lights to burn in every 
dangerous spot and along every dreaded coast. 

*'In the fourth year," the report goes on, "the work was raised 
to 120 feet, and yet the sea in storms, flies in appearance one hundred 
feet above the vane, and at times doth cover half the side of the 
house and lantern as if it were under water." 

Let those laugh who win! It was now Winstanley's turn to make 
merry, and he did so right heartily in his own characteristic and eccen- 
tric fashion. "Not build a tower upon that rock! Why, I'll build ye, 
an ye will, a Chinese pagoda!" And he added, "gables and turrets 
and balconies," and pointed his mockery by representing himself as 
fishing out of the kitchen window! 

Thus the man had conquered the rock in a battle as desperate as 
any in the bloody annals of war. Upon the highest point of its jagged 
back he placed a beacon; and many a gallant ship and brave sailor 
were saved by it during the next three years, and had cause to bless 
its warning light and the man who set it there in the midst of the 
wind and the waves. If Winstanley, with all the power and wealth 
of a great nation to back him, had destroyed in an unjust war as 
many lives and as much property as by his own unaided and heroic 
efforts he had saved; or even had he killed off a few, wretched, half- 
naked savages, history would have lauded his name as that of a great 
captain, and titles and medals would have showered upon him in pro- 
fusion. But a simple mechanic, who leaves behind him only a rich legacy 
of happiness and prosperity instead of hatred, what has history to do 
with such? — even though the influence of his life and death and works 
is felt today throughout the world! 

History ! Why, if the fanciful prophecy of a writer in the Atlantic 
of a year or so ago should ever come true, when the coming New 
Zealander of A. D. 3758 shall uncover the ruins of our present boasted 
civilization, and seek, from the few remaining relics of the past which 
the all-devouring tooth of time may have spared, to reconstruct anew 
the life and times of today — it will not be from the rotting volumes 
which now line the shelves of our libraries that he will glean the knowl- 



486 THE STORY OF A LIGHTHOUSE. 

edge that he seeks. Such scanty remnants as may then remain of our 
industries and our manufactures and our arts will be all that will be 
left to speak to him of the power and the genius and the character of 
a once mighty people — of the age of the cotton gin and the printing 
press and the steam engine and the telegraph and the photograph and 
the telephone and the electric light. And should he, perchance, turn 
over the mouldy pages of our "histories," so-called, to learn the names 
and read the lives of those giants of our race, whom we must have 
so delighted to honor — those great benefactors, who bore upon their 
mighty shoulders our entire civilization like a feather, and whose works 
alone remain to rescue us from oblivion and challenge the respect of 
posterity — he will search amongst the records of bloody battles and 
party strife and local politics and puerile Congressional debates and 
the wranglings of Presidential elections — and he will turn and seek 
and search, in vain. That which gives to us today, and will give to us 
then, if that time ever comes, our real character and genius and national 
flavor — our true place in the history of the world's progress in thought 
and achievement — ignored and unnoticed, while vain pretension and 
martial achievement and crafty diplomacy fill the volumes which claim 
to record our national existence ! 

Well! You all know the end of my story. How, in the fearful 
storm of November 26, 1703, one of the most terrific that ever raged 
on that coast before or since, the elements combined in one last and 
final struggle against the adventurous man who had dared to oppose 
their mighty power, and swept both house and builder into the pitiless 
sea. When morning broke after that terrible storm, the dead lined the 
shores of Plymouth Sound, and off in the distance, lay, growling sav- 
agely, that angry monster, dark, sullen, terrible, still unconquered, and 
only the more ravenous for blood and treasure by reason of its long 
enforced fast. And the one man in all England who had ever dared 
to give it battle, lay tossing in the breakers, the sport of the merciless 
elements he had so long defied, his stout heart stilled forever, his idle 
hands, that were so strong in good works, tossing feebly and aim- 
lessly to and fro, and his dead, white face looking up to the gloomy, 
wintry sky. Of the light he had with so much toil and patient labor 
erected, not a stick nor a stone remained ! 

But yet one thing did remain — those twelve small holes in the 
monster's back, holding up to all the world their lesson of patient 
endeavor, and proclaiming to every passing vessel — Winstanley — his 
mark! And another thing remained — the memory of the man who 
made them and his great example. The rock had not conquered the 
man, for the man still lived. We may even fancy that in that terrible 



DUBOIS. 487 

night which was his last on earth, as each sea burst over the doomed 
house and shook it to its foundations, he heard in the roar of the 
storm and the hoarse shrieking of the wind the cheers of dead mari- 
ners and the plaudits of the Hving; and as the wreck came crashing 
down, he may even have smiled in his brave, undaunted heart at the 
thought that, let come what may, he had yet conquered, and with that 
smile in his heart and on his face, gone calmly to his fitting death and 
grave. 

Winstanley showed the way. He demonstrated that the thing 
could be done. As Smeaton generously observes, "It was no small 
degree of heroic merit in Winstanley to undertake a piece of work 
which had before been deemed impracticable, and by the success which 
attended his endeavors, to show mankind that the erection of such a 
building was not in itself a thing of that kind." Winstanley's work 
and example were not lost. Such lives and examples never are. Bur 
at first, no one stirred to follow, until one day the monster opened his 
mouth again, and this time it was the Winchdsea, a richly laden, hoir.e- 
ward bound vessel, lost with every soul on board. Then at last 
Government awoke to the necessity of a light house on that dangerous 
reef, and John Rudyerd was the man they called to the work — singu- 
larly enough, another London mercer. 

Rudyerd was the son of a Cornish laborer of bad habits and worse 
character, and the rest of the family seem to have been but little better. 
"A worthless set of ragged beggars" Smiles calls them, ''John being 
the one sound chick in all the brood." Certainly, opportunity does not 
seem to have done much for him, yet he must have become well-known 
for mechanical ability, or he would never have been selected for such 
a work. The philosophic Smeaton, who never loses a chance to moral- 
ize, remarks concerning him as follows: ''This shows that though 
education and example may do much, yet there is something in natural 
disposition not totally to be eradicated by education. Had Mr. Rud- 
yerd's parents been of the most amiable character and if one of their 
children had turned out the reverse, who would have wondered? We 
should readily have explained it, that it arose from ill impressions from 
without. But the wonder in this case is, that in spite of evil example, 
here is a mind capable of emancipating itself by the most violent of 
all remedies that young people generally take, that of separation from 
parents and household by flight. 

"Stimulated by Winstanley's example and warned by his errors, 
Rudyerd erected a light, simple and masterly in its design and execu- 
tion. Indeed, Winstanley's light was full of defects, and the wonder 
is, it ever stood as long as it did. 



488 THE STORY OF A LIGHTHOUSE. 

"Rudyerd's work was most workmanlike, an admirable specimen 
of carpentry. A circumstance occurred during its erection, so credit- 
able to Louis XIV, then King of France, that it is worth mention here. 
There being war at the time between France and England, a French 
privateer one day seized all the men employed upon the rock and carried 
them off as prisoners to France. The capture coming to the ears of the 
king, he ordered the prisoners released, and sent them back to England 
with presents, declaring 'that though he was at war with England, 
he was not at war with mankind.' " 

Beyond this, we have no story to tell of the execution. Hazardous 
and difficult it undoubtedly was, but with men and means and Govern- 
ment aid to back them, and with the foothold won by Winstanley at such 
infinite pains, the work was comparatively easy. 'The whole building," 
says Smeaton, ''consisted of a simple figure, being an elegant frustum 
of a cone, unbroken by any projecting ornaments or by anything whereon 
the violence of storms could lay hold." The work was finished in 1709, 
and withstood the fiercest gales for a period of nearly fifty years. It 
might have been standing even now, indeed, but its chief defect was 
that it was made, like Winstanley's, of wood, and on December 2, 1755, 
from some cause, never satisfactorily ascertained, it took, fire and was 
completely destroyed. 

We have left, all this while, our rock again bare, with the waves 
sweeping freely over it, meeting with no obstacle. Again a fresh at- 
tempt is made, and this time John Smeaton leads the attack. 

Smeaton, like Watt, was originally a philosophical instrument 
maker, and one of the greatest of those great men who have contributed 
to make engineering the honorable profession it is today. Watt him- 
self always spoke of him in terms of sincerest admiration, calling him 
"father Smeaton." Writing to Sir Joseph Banks, he said, "In justice 
to him we should observe that he lived before Rennie, and before 
there, were one-tenth of the artists there are now. Siium cuique; his 
example and precepts have made us all engineers," Robert Stephenson 
said of him long after, when engineers had covered the land and sea 
with the results of their brilliant labors, "Smeaton was the greatest 
philosopher in our profession that this country has yet produced. His 
mind was as clear as crystal ; and, to this day, there are no writings 
so valuable as his in the highest walks of scientific engineering. When 
young men ask me, as they frequently do, what they should read, I 
invariably say, 'Go to Smeaton's philosophical papers, read them, master 
them thoroughly, and nothing will be of greater service to you.' Smeaton 
was indeed a very great man. 



DUBOIS, 489 

"Such is the testimony of those competent to judge as to his pro- 
fessional abihties. In his character he was persevering, industrious, and 
unassuming. When, in the height of his fame, the Princess Dashkoff 
urged him to go to Russia and enter the service of her Empress, hold- 
ing out to him very tempting promises of reward, he politely refused. 
No money could tempt him to leave his home, his friends, and his pur- 
suits in England, 'Sir' exclaimed the Princess, with all the amiable en- 
thusiasm of her sex, 'I honor you ! You may have your equal in abil- 
ity, perhaps, but in character you stand alone. The English Minister, 
Sir Robert Walpole, was mistaken, and my Sovereign has the misfor- 
tune to find one man who has not his price.' " 

Of his domestic character, his daughter has left on record the fol- 
lowing charming picture: ''Though communicative on most subjects and 
stored with ample and liberal observations on others, of himself he 
never spoke. In nothing else does he seem to have stood more single 
than in being devoid of that egotism which more or less affects the 
world. It required some address, even in his family, to draw him 
into conversation directly relating to himself, his pursuits, or his suc- 
cess. Self opinion, self interest, and self indulgence seemed alike 
tempered in him by a modesty inseparable from merit — a moderation 
in pecuniary ambition, a habit of intense application, and a temperance 
strict beyond the common standard. Devoted to his family with an 
affection so lively, a manner at once so cheerful and serene, that it is 
impossible to say whether the charm of conversation, the simplicity of 
instruction, or the gentleness with which it was conveyed, most en- 
deared his home — a home in which from infancy we cannot recollect 
to have seen a trace of dissatisfaction or a word of asperity to any 
one. Yet with all this, he was absolute! And it is for casuistry, or 
education, or rule, to explain his authority ; it was an authority as 
impossible to dispute as to define." 

Such is the opinion of those competent to judge as to his char- 
acter, and such was the man who then brought all his powers to the 
work before him. The beautiful traits of character above portrayed 
were as much an integral part of the brilliant success he attained as 
his professional abilities themselves. Again, we have a striking illus- 
tration of the fact that opportunity, though it finds the man, does not 
make him. Let us now pass from the man to the deed. 

He started out with a stroke of genius. He boldly proclaimed 
that the new light should be of stone ! We can scarcely comprehend 
today what an innovation this was. We should probably say, "Why, 
of course, it should be of stone! of what else would you build it? What 
is so durable, so substantial, so reliable, so solid! Has not one wooden 



490 THE STORY OF A LIGHTHOUSE. 

Structure been already destroyed by storm and another by fire? Would 
you repeat these disasters?" But stone, though durable, is brittle. 
Though solid in the main, it is weak in detail. "How bind the blocks 
together so that they may sustain such mighty shocks as they will be 
exposed to ! Neither mortar nor cement can be relied upon for this, 
as we well know, and how else can they be fastened? The project is 
impracticable. It is rash. We have no precedent to guide us." All 
of which was quite true. But just here was Smeaton's originality shown, 
for the results of which we have to thank him today. He treated his 
brittle, stubborn material with all the ease and freedom of wood. He 
notched it, and grooved it, and fitted it, and wedged it, and bound it, 
and under his treatment it proved plastic and tractable. Smeaton was 
the first man to erect a stone lighthouse in such an exposed position, 
and to show how the thing could be done. To any one who knows 
the tenacity with which artisans hold to old methods and old rules, es- 
pecially the capacity in that direction of the British workman — a capa- 
city equalled only by that of the American mule — the fact that Smea- 
ton actually carried through his novel ideas to full completion will be 
considered not the least of his great achievements and the strongest of 
testimonials to his strength of will and force of character. His origi- 
nality shows strongly in his treatment of his stubborn material. He 
had no precedent to guide him. Every step was new. A skilled work- 
man himself — another instance of unconscious preparation for a great 
work — he trusted the execution of his ideas to no one, but with his 
own hands he made his model, cutting and carving every part of it 
himself. Concerning his action in this respect he remarks : "Those 
of my readers who are not in the practice of handling mechanical tools 
themselves, but are under the necessity of applying to the manual 
operations of others, will undoubtedly conclude that I might have saved 
much time by employing the hands of others in this matter, and oi? 
the idea of the design being already fixed and fully and accurately as 
well as distinctly made out, that is, supposing the thing done that was 
wanted to be done, it certainly would have been so, and had I wanted 
a duplicate of any part or of the whole when done, I should certainly 
have had recourse to the hands of others. But such of my readers as 
are in the use of handling tools for the purpose of contrivance and in- 
vention will clearly see that, provided I could work with as much fa- 
cility and dispatch as those I might happen to meet with and em- 
ploy, I should save all the time and difficulty, and often vexation, mis- 
takes, and disappointments, that arise from a communication of one's 
own ideas to others; and that when steps of invention are to follow one 
another in succession and dependence on what preceded, under such 
circumstances, it is not eligible to make use of the hands of others." 



DUBOIS. 491 

This was one great secret of his success. He put his own ideas 
into tangible shape himself. The stones of each course were ingen- 
iously locked to each other and to those above and below, very much 
like the blocks in a Chinese puzzle. Thus, however great the force of 
the waves, no stone could be displaced or dislodged. The whole was 
a solid monolith — solid as if cut from a single block of stone — dur- 
able as the rock upon which it rested. Such handling of stone was 
never seen before. With caution and infinite pains and thoroughness 
he went slowly along, superintending every smallest detail in person, 
trusting nothing to chance or to others that he could do himself, leaving 
no weak spots, taking nothing for granted. Every stone was cut and 
fitted and numbered on shore and set in its place, before it went out to 
the rock. Thus if it met with disaster on the way, it could easily be 
replaced. For the shape of his tower he chose the curve of the bole 
of an oak tree as his model, a shape fashioned through centuries of 
storm and stress by the very elements he combatted. He gave addi- 
tional firmness to the stones dove-tailed into the foundation rock, by 
means of oak wedges and cement inserted between each. In addi- 
tion to this, a couple of holes were bored through every stone and oak 
trenails driven through and made fast, so that, says Smeaton, ''no as- 
signable force, less than would by main stress pull these trenails in 
two, could lift one of these stones from their beds when so fixed, as all 
agitation was prevented by the lateral wedges." In the same careful, 
thorough manner every course was laid; and on the 16th of October, 
1759, those who still persisted that no building erected of stone could 
possibly stand on the Eddystone, might have seen shining through the 
night, a light which from that day to the present time has never failed. 

Smeaton followed up this fine performance by another quite as 
fine in its way, and one which seems to have taxed his powers quite 
as much. He did what every engineer who completes a novel work of 
magnitude owes it to his profession to do — he wrote an account of his 
work. The unpractised writer says in his Preface, ''When I com- 
menced the composition of this work, as I had then written several 
essays in the Phil. Trans., in which I had been happy enough to make 
myself understood, I did not suppose it a matter of difficulty to give a 
distinct account of the progress and structure of the Eddystone light- 
house. But I now find reason to change my first opinion, and am 
convinced that to write a book, even tolerably well, is not a light or 
easy matter. In truth I have found much more difficulty in writing 
than I did in building. When I consider that I have been employed 
full seven years, at every opportunity, in forwarding this book, having 



492 THE STORY OF A LIGHTHOUSE. 

all the original draughts and materials to go upon, and that the pro- 
duction of these original materials as well as the building itself were 
dispatched in half that time, I am almost tempted to subscribe to the 
sentiment adopted by Mr. Pope, that: 

" 'Nature's chief masterpiece is writing well.' 

"It is true that I have not been bred to literature, but it is equally 
true that I was no more bred to mechanics. We must therefore con- 
clude that the same mind has in reality, a much greater facility in 
some subjects than in others." 

Nothwithstanding these modest words, this Report of Smeaton 
stands today as a model of all that such a Report ought to be — a mas- 
terpiece of engineering literature, even as the work itself was a master- 
piece of execution — full, complete, well proportioned, and written in 
a style at once clear and attractive. We must therefore conclude that 
natural facility or aptitude lies more in the capacity for taking pains 
than in birth; more in training than in nature; that a man is not al- 
ways the best judge of his own merits or work; and that here is a man, 
who doing thoroughly, earnestly, and with pains, whatever he found 
to do with head or hands, could do nothing ill or imperfectly, and yet 
withal, so modest as not to be aware of his own excellence. 

And now in its turn Smeaton's light has had to come down to 
make way for another. This is not because of any inherent defect or 
weakness in the construction, for it is as solid today as the day it was 
erected; but because the ceaseless action of the waves has undermined 
the very rock upon which it stands, until the foundation has become 
precarious. With characteristic fickleness the winds and waves have 
changed their allegiance, and from being the allies of the rock have 
become its enemies. Smeaton's tower has actually shown itself more 
durable than the rock itself; and now that it must come down and 
another upon a safer site take its place, the best tribute to his skill and 
genius is that the most eminent engineers of today can devise no bet- 
ter plan than to erect the new light substantially according to his own 
designs and in the manner which he was the first to devise. 

There have been many lights built since then in many dangerous 
and difficult places. There have been many as hazardous and difficult 
to build as this, and requiring a courage as great to execute. The age 
of stone has passed, and we build them now of iron; and among the 
long list of those, both stone and iron, which guard our own coasts to- 
day, are many which can tell an honorable tale of dangers encoun- 
tered and difficulties overcome and perseverance rewarded. If I have 
made much of the present case, it is that I feel that to the pioneer 
who boldly pushes out into unknown regions to meet unknown dangers 



DUBOIS. 493 

belong both a credit and an interest peculiar and not to be shared by 
those who follow in the path already trod. The deeds of unselfish 
philanthropy and heroic self-sacrifice, whence this tower has sprung, 
are not so common that it will be considered a waste of time to dwell 
upon them tonight, nor will it prove unprofitable to contemplate their 
outcome. Winstanley's work and life and death were noble, and he 
has indeed a worthy tombstone ! So long as the earth endures, the 
Eddystone shall not lack its warning light, and through all time, not a 
year will pass that Winstanley's death will not prove the life of thous- 
ands. Well has Cicero declared, with equal truth and beauty, in his 
essay, De Senectute, ''The brief space of life is long enough for worthy 
and blessed living/^ Let Winstanley's life and work and death point 
the moral for us. To live through all the ages, thus saving life and 
property, a blessing to one's fellows, an honor to one's nation, an or- 
nament to one's profession, a benefactor of the world, is a lot given to 
but few, and a reward beyond the power of wealth to bestow. The 
world has seen few greater victories, and that stately monument reads 
lessons to us all. 

A profession which holds out such prizes is worthy the cultiva- 
tion of our brightest intellects. 

Kindly grant me your indulgence for a few moments longer, that 
I may at least point my moral, if not adorn my tale. 

To those of us who belong today to the noble profession of Win- 
stanley and Smeaton — and it may well be that there are many such here 
tonight — our story possesses indeed a peculiar interest. 

We know it to be a profession, and our story emphasizes the y 
fact, in which success must be commanded by the thorough and the 
honest and the true. One cannot play and dally with Nature. No 
dialectics and acute hair-splitting and subtle special pleading will avail 
us here! The forces of Nature, which we must make use of or com- 
bat, restrain or utilize or subdue, are relentless, merciless to error or 
ignorance or sham, silent and sure and pitiless as death ; and under 
their remorseless scrutiny, no weak spot can be hidden or covered up, 
no blemish but must come to light. The most thorough preparation 
and the sternest, surest, logical methods known to man are here none 
too good, and they must be guided and wielded by no prejudice nor 
prepossessions. No carelessness here — that is punished as a crime. No 
settling of vexed questions by authorities however high — truth yields 
to no authority. The doctor — .(I intend no flippant disrespect of a 
noble profession) — the doctor may bury the results of his experiments 
underground and out of sight. The lawyer may hang or imprison 
his. The theologian may hide his errors in the dark obscurity of 



494 THE STORY OF A LIGHTHOUSE. 

dusty shelves. But we must publish ours to all the world — from the 
very housetops. There is no escape, and no evasion is possible. De- 
cay and rust and the sharp tooth of time will eat up our most favorite 
theories and destroy our pet hypotheses. They will search out and 
bring to light and hold up to criticism every faulty performance. Talk 
avails nothing here and polemics are idle. Nothing will serve — nothing 
can serve — but the exact truth, both in conception and performance- 
truth external and truth internal — truth in the very inward parts. 
Every falling bridge and crumbling tower and sliding wall and broken 
arch and bursting dam and torn embankment and sinking ship and 
burning building are but so many illustrations of this fact. Nature's 
forces are good servants but poor masters. It behooves us to know 
them and to heed them; for when we fail, they will neither hush up nor 
condone our ignorance or dishonesty. 

The practice of such a profession tends to make honest men. Hon- 
est not merely morally — ^not merely morally, for that is comparatively 
common — but mentally honest; a very rare result indeed, and one only 
to be attained by the severest training, and which no me-re morality 
can ever teach, enforce, or secure. Indeed, are not our accepted moral 
teachers just here most generally and peculiarly found wanting? How 
many can say truthfully that they guard against error from within as close- 
ly and as carefully as from without — >from mental sin as jealously as from 
moral contamination — that they hold sentiment in suspicion and under 
habitual control, and are altogether free from the ''unpardonable sin" 
as John Fiske well calls it, of "letting preference tamper with judg- 
ment"? It is just this lesson which our profession pre-eminently 
teaches, and this result which it enforces, by the severest penalties, far 
more strictly than any purely moral teaching can ever do. Causing us 
habitually to scrutinize our own conclusions and pet theories and most 
cherished opinions, and even our very mental processes themselves, as 
closely, as pitilessly, and as disinterestedly as ever the most moral man 
his neighbor's faults. No academic shades, no classic erudition, no 
study of old masters, no eloquent sermonizing, no moral exhilaration, 
no religious fervor, can ever teach this lesson or procure for us this 
crowning result of culture and true training. It is only to be gained in 
the stern school of experience and realities, where responsibility is di- 
rect and punishment swift and sure, and judgment is just and untinged 
with mercy, and error is without appeal. 

The achievements of such a profession speak an eloquent language 
to him who can understand their voice. For such, there are indeed 
books in the running brooks and sermons in stones. Consider any con- 
struction of the engineer or mechanic ! It is an embodied thought ! 



DUBOIS. 495 

Intelligence speaks in every curve; every detail has its meaning and 
its purpose; every member is a visible idea — the whole is an illus- 
trated lecture. Reason and thought and design stand out in tangible 
shapes which speak to us no less than the printed page. And they 
speak a lofty language too! In this sense and spirit we may find, 
even in a lighthouse, a crystallized song, and in a steam engine an epic 
poem. 

The study of the history of such achievements will richly repay 
the student. He will find in many an humble building the visible 
embodiment of a brave, true life, and the fitting monument of a noble 
death — its very mortar, it may be, mixed with blood, and human hearts 
and hopes and high aspirations built into the very courses of its walls ! 

My story is finished. I have chosen to make it rather biographical 
and historical than technical and scientific. I have dealt with men 
and deeds, as I said I would, rather than with facts and figures — with 
principles rather than with statistics. 

A novelist whom I love to read opens one of his finest efforts, and 
to my mind, one of the most powerful sketches of the day, with these 
words — "Not a day passes over the earth, but men and women of no 
note do great deeds, speak great words, and suffer noble sorrows. Of 
these obscure heroes, philosophers, and martyrs, the greater part will 
never be known till that hour when many that were great shall be 
small and the small great; but of the others the world's knowledge 
may be said to sleep; their lives and characters are hidden from nations 
in the very annals that record them. The general reader cannot feel 
them, for they are presented so curtly and so coldly; they are not like 
breathing stories appealing to his heart, but little historic hailstorms 
striking him but to glance off his bosom; nor can he understand them; 
for epitomes are not narratives, as skeletons are not human figures." 

And then in his charmed pages the past comes back to us, dry 
bones take shape and substance, and the shades of those long passed 
away revive, reclothe themselves in flesh and blood, and, guided by the 
master's magic hand, live and move and breathe and act and find their 
way to our hearts and to our sympathies. 

The spirit and the inspiration of this text have determined my 
treatment of this evening's lecture. I have not aimed to give a scien- 
tific or technical presentation of this great work of engineering skill — 
Smeaton has done that for you much better than I could hope to — but I 
have thought it fitting, in this year when Smeaton's light in its turn 
must come down to make way for another; myself a member of that 
profession which Smeaton and Winstanley have so adorned; speaking, 
it may be, to many of those who, like Winstanley and Smeaton, arc 



496 THE STORY OF A LIGHTHOUSE. 

mechanics and proud of their calling; to take one of these little "his- 
toric hailstones," to try if perchance my feeble breath might melt its 
ice, and drop it back to the past whence it came — a little tear in trib- 
ute to a brave man's memory. 

No stone in Westminster Abbey tells his story or records his 
deeds; but far out at sea, in a grander temple not made with hands, 
beneath a vaster dome, "whose quenchless lamps the sun and moon 
supply, whose choir the winds and waves, whose organ thunder" — 
nobly breasting the wind and gale; sending out through the darkness 
and the night its saving rays; preaching to all the ages its lofty ser- 
mon of courage and perseverance and high endeavor and patient toil 
rewarded — ^(a visible embodiment of the motto of this College — "Lux 
et Veritas" — ) there stands today, a shaft of stone as solid as the 
rock on which it rests — and that is Winstanley's fitting monument! 



THE OPPORTUNITIES IN THE ELECTRICAL BUSINESS. 

By 

Dean George A. Damon. 

The Editors' reasons for including this paper in their second edi- 
tion are as follows : 

First. It is a well-thought-out, forceful production which will prove 
of real benefit to many readers. In spite of its being eight years old, 
its teachings are just as valuable today as they were when written. 

Second. It is specially applicable to electrical engineering students 
and young electrical engineers, and this book aims to serve students and 
young practitioners in all branches of engineering. 

Third. It is written eminently from a business point of view — a 
feature that is worthy, perhaps, of more consideration than was given it 
in the first edition. 

This paper was presented at the first meeting of the electrical sec- 
tion of the Western Society of Engineers, held March 18, 1904. 

Mr. Damon is eminently fitted for handling the subject of his ad- 
dress, because he is simultaneously a practising electrical engineer and 
an instructor, holding the positions of Western Representative of The 
Arnold Company at Los Angeles, Cal, and Dean of the Engineering 
Department of the Throop Polytechnic Institute in the neighboring city 
of Pasadena. 

He graduated from the University of Michigan in 1895 with the 
degree of B. S. E. E. ; and after a general practice of five years he be- 
came associated with the Arnold Company at Chicago as their Manag- 
ing Engineer, and has remained with that Company ever since, removing 
to the Pacific Coast in January, 1911. 

Editors. 



497 



THE OPPORTUNITIES IN THE ELECTRICAL BUSINESS. 

By 

Dean George A. Damon. 

The electrical business is a complicated one, and is constantly under- 
going changes. By the time a method or system becomes standard 
enough to be looked upon as a precedent, a tendency develops in some 
entirely new direction. The men who succeed in electrical work must 
therefore be quick to grasp the lessons of the past, must be ready to ap- 
preciate the limitations of the present, and, above all, should be alert to 
seize the opportunities for improvement. 

The leaders in the various branches of the industry during the first 
developments, when electrical work was an art and not a science, were 
graduates from the well-known university of "Hard Knocks." The men 
of the second generation of workers who are now doing things are 
largely the product of a semi-scientific training in schools of technology, 
supplemented by experience of a practical nature picked up in a more 
or less hap-hazard way. A few years more will see the development of 
a third and better prepared generation of electrical experts, and it is 
safe to say that they will be the result of a combination of a practical 
training thoroughly mixed with a theoretical education. As it must be 
expected that the next generation will be superior to the present one, 
will it not be well to stop for an instant in the strenuous rush for re- 
sults and make a few suggestions which may be of assistance to our 
successors in planning their life work? 

"Work harder," "dig deeper," "put in a better concrete foundation," 
are the key notes of the suggestions which our older brothers give to 
us as the result of their experience, and the ambitious young man will 
be quick to recognize the value of their advice. But what is wanted 
most is some definite information as to how to spend the time devoted 
to preparation in the most efficient manner, and how to get the benefit 
of a combined training in theory and practice in the most effective way. 

Three Inquiries. 

That those who have traveled well on their way toward their goal 
will have many opportunities to point the way to the ones behind, is 
well indicated by recounting several recent conversations. The first was 
with a boy of eighteen. 

499 



31. 



500 OPPORTUNITIES IN THE ELECTRICAL BUSINESS. 

"I am a Senior in the High School," he said, "and I want to be- 
come an electrical engineer; what shall I do?" 

He was strong, bright, ambitious and willing to work. 

"Some men tell me to take a college course first and enter practical 
work afterward; some tell me to get a few years' experience first and 
then take a college course, while still others tell me to study several 
years, work a year or two, and then finish my Senior year. In planning 
my course should I include the language studies or cut them out in favor 
of shop, laboratory, or commercial courses? Should I try to get through 
in three years, or should I extend my college education over a period of 
five years? Others tell me to leave out the university work entirely, go 
to work in the shop or upon construction work, getting what theoretical 
training I require by attendance at night school or by taking a corre- 
spondence course. What shall I do?" 

And there are some of us who will appreciate the young man's be- 
wilderment. 

The second conversation was with a professor at the head of the 
electrical department of one of our leading universities. 

"I feel highly complimented," he said. "I have received a letter 
from one of the largest electrical manufacturing companies in this coun- 
try, offering positions to my entire Senior class. This is remarkable, 
for in Europe it is the custom for the technical graduates to pay for the 
privilege of entering the shops of the large companies. But," he con- 
tinued, "I should like to find out whether or not I should advise my boys 
to accept this offer. What has become of the young college men who 
entered the shop courses in years gone by? Are they advancing as 
satisfactorily as the graduates who found positions in other parts of the 
field? Have the large companies taken care of the graduates of their 
testing departments with sufficient liberality to justify a young man in 
making the sacrifices which a shop course entails? Would it not be bet- 
ter all around if I offered the large company the services of my Junior 
class for one year? What would you advise?" 

The professor is to be commended in his search for information, and 
in his evident interest in seeing his "boys" get a fair start in the stren- 
uous race in which they have entered. 

The third conversation was with a young electrical engineer who 
had graduated from high school, had then taken a college course with 
some practical v/ork during vacations, and had then entered a large 
factory as a "special apprentice." 

"I have had a fine experience," he said, "and have nothing to regret. 
Upon leaving college I went into the testing department of a large 
electrical manufacturing company, was promoted rapidly, and finally 



DAMON. 



501 



advanced into the engineering department. My compensation at first was 
small, but it has gradually been increased until at the end of five years' 
service I am receiving about $1,500 per year. I am looking out for the 
future, however, and am not entirely satisfied with the prospect. If I 
stay with my present employers, the manufacturing company, my work 
must be narrowed to one department of the work, and I shall always be 
a salaried man without an opportunity to acquire an interest in the busi- 
ness. Would it not have been better for me to start with a smaller com- 
pany, and is it too late yet for me to begin over again? What would 
you suggest?" 

Knowing that the leading electrical men of Chicago would afford a 
valuable field for studying results and would welcome an opportunity 
to help furnish a solution for the problems of the boy, the professor, and 
the rising young electrical engineer, a letter of inquiry was sent to one 
hundred of the leading men in Chicago engaged in the various branches 
of the electrical industry. An opportunity was given at the same time 
for the expression of opinion on various questions pertinent to the gen- 
eral subject. The response to the circular letter was hearty and spon- 
taneous, and we are under obligations to one hundred of our friends who 
have so kindly consented to become living examples, and willing to be 
analyzed for the good of the cause. The following is : 



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502 OPPORTUNITIES IN THE ELECTRICAL BUSINESS. 

An Analysis of Results. 

Young men control the business. The inquiry was, therefore, con- 
fined to men between the ages of 27 and 45, upon the theory that the 
older men are the product of a set of conditions which have passed 
away, while the youngest men are, as a rule, still engaged in a period 
of preparation. The number of men of each age is shown graphically. 
The average age is thirty-three and one-half years. 

The average income at each age is also plotted on a gunshot dia- 
gram and a line of average incomes determined up to the age of thirty- 
eight, after which there were not sufficient data to locate the curve. 
This income curve starts with a value of $2,170 at twenty-seven and ex- 
tends to $4,000 at the age of thirty-eight. The average income of the 
entire one hundred men is $3,440 per year, which will give us a standard 
by which we can measure the different branches from a mercenary stand- 
point. 

The hundred men may be divided into groups as follows : 

Average Average 

No. of men Age Income 

Salesmen . . 7 33 $2,400 

Sales Managers 11 36 3,400 

Business Men 10 36 4,800 

Sales Engineers 8 35 2,350 

Electrical Engineers 16 33 2,800 

Constructing Engineers 6 33 2,850 

Electrical Experts 8 33 3,200 

Operating Engineers 3 32 2,250 

Operating Managers and Superintendents. 10 34 3,550 

Professors and Editors 8 34 2,500 

Patent Attorneys 4 32 4,000 

Consulting Engineers 9 40 6,400 

Total number of men, 100. General Averages: age, 33>^ years; income, 
$3,440. 

Classified in reference to incomes, the record is as follows: 

Men 

Income over $10,000 per year 5 

Income between $5,000 and $10,000. 9 

Income between $2,400 and $5,000 66 

Income below $2,400 20 

Total 100 

It should be stated that there are in Chicago at least one hundred 
more men in the business whose incomes will average about the same 
as the first hundred selected. An effort was made to make the list 
representative, and the men were selected on account of their positions 
without reference to their incomes. 



DAMON. 503 

It is to be understood that the dollar is not the most desirable 
standard by which to measure men individually, but looked upon as a 
class, a study of the averages furnished by the inquiry is interesting and 
may be made instructive. 

Salesmen who have technical ability or possess engineering informa- 
tion, as a rule, get better salaries than those who do not. 

Add initiative and executive ability to the salesman's ability and he 
becomes a sales manager with a still greater reward. 

Enterprise and energy put the man in possession of his own busi- 
ness, or often result in a partnership arrangement. A technical man 
without the commercial instinct is only fairly well paid. Ability to 
develop new methods or apparatus puts him in the expert class where 
the rewards are greater and in proportion to his ability. 

Routine work, such as operating, is the least remunerative work of 
all. Operating managers and superintendents, however, are very well 
paid. 

The editors were classed with the professors as there were too few 
to form a class with an average of their own. 

Our professors should form a union, as they are certainly entitled 
to higher compensation, and as we all appreciate their value we would 
help them win should they decide to strike. We must grant, however, 
that they get rewards in seeing the living results of their work, which 
is a compensation worthy of considerable sacrifice. 

The phenomenal development along all electrical lines, and par- 
ticularly in the telephone business, makes the profession of patent at- 
torney a paying one for those who are qualified for that kind of work. 

The field of consulting electrical engineering looks attractive, but 
it will be noted that the average age is greater in this branch than in 
the others, which means that the successful consulting engineer brings 
to his work years of experience, and that it is, therefore, not a branch to 
be adopted at once by the young man. 

Forty per cent of the men in the list are employed by what might 
be termed the "large" companies, such as the Western Electric, Chicago 
Edison, Chicago Telephone Company, etc. 

Thirty-five per cent of the men either control the business in which 
they are engaged or own a partnership interest. 

Twenty-five per cent of the men are not college graduates. 

Twenty per cent of this hundred successful men never had any 
college education whatever. 

The average age of the twenty men who are succeeding without a 



504 OPPORTUNITIES IN THE ELECTRICAL BUSINESS. 

college education is 36 years, and their success, measured by a monetary 
standard, shows an income of $3,670 per year. 

The average age of 16 graduates of Cornell is also 36 years, and 
their success, measured by the same questionable standard, is $4,940, 
which shows a balance of $1,270.00 per year in favor of a college 
education. 

It will be noted, however, that the twenty men without the educa- 
tion are getting along financially slightly better than the general average 
of $3,440 per year. This is explained by the fact that in their number 
are included several men who are prospering as a result of their business 
enterprise." 

There are few non-technical men engaged in the strictly technical 
end of the business who reach the average income. 

There seem to be more openings for the man without a college train- 
ing in the telephone field than in any other. 

The inquiry into the domestic arrangements of our hundred examples 
shows that 75 per cent of them are married. The families are com- 
posed of 45 boys and 30 girls. 

Out of the hundred men selected only 56 per cent belong to the 
American Institute of Electrical Engineers. 

The answers to the questions upon which an expression of opinion 
was asked resulted as follows : 

Eighty per cent are inclined to think that a college education is 
essential to the highest success. 

Seventy per cent are in favor of the technical graduate taking a 
shop course in a large manufacturing company, but many wished to 
limit this course to one year. 

Fifty-five per cent are of the opinion that, in choosing a life work, 
better chances for advancement will be found with the smaller com- 
panies. 

Seventy per cent are in favor of requiring a year's practical work 
of the student before graduation. 

Fifty-five per cent agree that the larger companies would be con- 
sulting the interest of the art at large by offering an apprentice course 
open to students during an intermission of one or two years before com- 
pleting the Senior year. 

Opportunities. 

Each of the hundred men included in the inquiry were asked to 
name the three fields which he considered most promising within the 
immediate future, and the votes received are as follows : 



DAMON. 505 

Electric Railway Work 63 

Telephony 36 

Transmission 30 

Electro-Chemistry 29 

Power Applications 21 

Lighting Developments 12 

Manufacturing. . . . 11 

Central Station Work 9 

Patent Law 6 

Consulting Engineering 6 

Contracting 5 

Management of Properties 5 

Storage Batteries 4 

Reconstruction of Plants 3 

Mining 3 

Metallurgy 3 

Turbines 2 

Wireless Telegraphy, Designing, High Speed Telegraphy, Underground 
Conduit Construction, Isolated Plants, Train Lighting, and Municipal 

Lighting, each 1 

As a result of personal observation, tempered somewhat by the 
opinions of the electrical men with whom the questions have been dis- 
cussed, the writer wishes to present the following conclusions: 

A College Education. 

A young man wishing to succeed in any branch of electrical indus- 
tries makes a serious mistake if he fails to use every effort to obtain 
a technical education. A college course is becoming easier to obtain, 
and it is already recognized as a general requirement for advancement. 
A young man of high aspirations, who is so situated that he cannot 
secure a university course, might better, nine^ times out of ten, take up 
some other branch of work which is less intricate than the electrical 
art. Thomas Edison, the Dean of the profession, is not a college man, 
but a gold medal bearing his name is to be given hereafter each year to 
the college graduate presenting the best thesis, and this incident is the 
best evidence of the present tendency toward technical education. Nearly 
every man who is now making his way in the electrical business without 
a college training, if asked what he would do if he had his life to live 
over will say: "I would secure a technical course in the best college I 
could find." 

Correspondence Schools. 

A technical course in a correspondence school which can give the 
proper training for an electrical engineer is yet to be produced. The 
correspondence schools are doing a good work and are to be recom- 
mended to those who cannot possibly avail themselves of a college course 



506 OPPORTUNITIES IN THE ELECTRICAL BUSINESS. 

or get instruction in evening school, (courses such as offered by Armour 
or Lewis Institutes) ; but a young man who will deliberately choose cor- 
respondence instruction, if anything else is available, is making a serious 
mistake. Of the hundred men in the list only two had completed a cor- 
respondence course. These two men were engaged in telephone work, 
and both voted in favor of a college course. 

Practical Experience. 

Practical experience is as essential as theoretical training. Too 
little attention has been paid by students in getting into thorough con- 
tact with the way things are actually done. This is the result of the 
general practice of allowing the young man to shift for himself. "I can't 
get a job without experience," he says, ''and I can't get experience with- 
out a job;" and then, more or less discouraged at the outlook, he takes 
the first opening which presents itself, and it may or may not be the 
kind of work for which he is fitted. What is needed is a general clearing- 
house of information, a closer union between the ambitious student and 
the successful men who have been pioneers in the work. The electrical 
business has now progressed far enough so that the actual experience 
essential for the highest success along any one of its various lines can 
be generally indicated by experts familiar with the ground to be cov- 
ered. It is time, therefore, to abandon a thoughtless and perhaps selfish 
attitude toward the beginner and make some organized effort to map 
out the territory which he must travel with guide posts and signs marked : 
"This Way to the Front." 

An association of thoroughly successful men should exercise some 
supervision over the preparation of the coming generation. If it is true 
that the art is suffering today from a lack of trained men ready to take 
up and solve the problems which are all about us, what must we ex- 
pect of the morrow with its widening opportunities? The student 
branches of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers and the re- 
cently formed Edison Medal Association are moves in the right direc- 
tion, but are only a beginning toward realizing the possibilities. Consid- 
erable attention is being given to develop the best technical course, but 
a college training is less than half of an education. What constitutes 
the other half is a big problem waiting for a comprehensive answer. 

Sh'op Courses. 

The policy of the large companies in offering apprentice courses 
and opportunities for experience in their testing departments is to be 
commended. This practice, as carried on in some cases, however, is to 
be criticised. A representative of a large manufacturing company visits 
a technical school, offering to give positions to all the members of the 



DAMON. 507 

Senior class ; the professor is highly complimented at this remarkable 
courtesy, and advises his students to accept. The "shop" course usually 
covers a period of two years. The hours are long and the pay is small. 
The "experience" gained by the student may or may not justify the sac- 
rifice. "It depends largely on the man." In the meantime the large 
company has a good opportunity to select the material which it requires 
for its own use, and perhaps twenty-five per cent of the shop graduates 
have reason to feel enthusiastic over the system ; the others pass through 
days and nights of discouragement, and many leave the shop with a 
sense of failure, which is sure to have an influence on their future. 

All men are not built alike. Then why grind them through the 
same mill? Should not some selection of materials be made before 
the mills are started, a sorting-over earlier in the process? Perhaps the 
mills themselves could be made a little more efficient. It does seem 
possible that a commission composed of the broadest men in the pro- 
fession, some from the large companies and some from outside prac- 
tice, could do much toward improving the facilities and present systems 
for "getting experience." On behalf of the students now in the col- 
leges who have still to face the practical problems, an appeal for help, 
information, and suggestions is made. 

The Student's Part. 

The trouble with a great many young men is that they don't "find" 
themselves early enough in life. They fail to realize the possibilities 
and are not prepared to grasp their opportunities. Ambition, Aptitude, 
Preparation, and Hard Work are the stepping stones to successful at- 
tainment. Let the ambition to excel be deeply seated and directed 
along the lines of natural endowment, let the purpose be firm; and as 
day follows night the preparation will be thorough and the man will 
be known by his works. "If I had it to do over again I would pick out 
some definite line of work suited to my talents and work like fury" is 
the advice of many successful and even unsuccessful men. 

The purpose of this paper is to encourage a general discussion 
which may be of some help in arousing the latent ambitions of the young 
men who have not selected their life work, by showing them the bound- 
less opportunities of an undeveloped science; to encourage the efforts 
of the students in our colleges by presenting the results which have been 
attained by their predecessors; to crystalize the sentiment in favor of a 
scientific combination of theory and practice ; and, finally, to give an 
opportunity to the men on the fighting line to point the way to their 
successors, who must come to the front prepared in every way, if they 
intend to take some part in the phenomenal developments which are to 
be expected. 



508 OPPORTUNITIES IN THE ELECTRICAL BUSINESS. 

In order to direct the discussion along definite channels, the fol- 
lowing is offered as a suggestion to a young man seriously considering 
engaging in the electrical business : 

A Specification for Success. 

In general — The purport and intent of this specification is to cover 
the labor and material required to produce, in complete working order, 
a man prepared to attain his own ideal of success in that branch of 
electrical work which he may elect. 

It is to be understood that the omission of the mention of small 
details in this description does not obviate the necessity of their being 
furnished. What is wanted is a thoroughly trained, well seasoned, 
broad minded man, complete with an individual character, a strong 
intellect, and a sincere purpose. 

Plans — ^He will form his ambition early in life. 

He will take a natural interest in the history of men of eminence 
in his chosen work; and their achievements will inspire him with a 
desire to accomplish great things. 

He will develop his imagination and constantly broaden his con- 
ception of his own possibilities. 

He will seek to learn what the world wants and then will endeavor 
to train his natural abilities so as to supply that want. 

Foundations — He will, as a boy, develop a knack of ''doing things," 
either as a mechanic, as a draftsman, or in some boyish business en- 
terprise, and a combination of any two or all three proclivities is de- 
sirable. 

He must early learn the advantage of doing some one thing well, 
but he should not allow praise for his proficiency to encourage him to 
neglect study along the lines he does not naturally fancy. 

He will prepare for college, and during this period of preparation 
he will get enough experience in practical work to demonstrate that he 
has made a wise choice for his life work. 

He will not let the attractions of practical work interfere with his 
intentions to secure the best theoretical and technical training the coun- 
try affords. 

Dimensions — He will endeavor early to "earn money" by doing 
useful work, and will seek employment outside of his study hours. 
Everything he attempts he will complete to the best of his knowledge 
and ability. 

He will put himself on a self-supporting basis as soon as possible, 
and will earn his own way through college. If he receives financial 
assistance, he will treat it as borrowed money, to be returned, and he 
will keep the debt within reasonable limits. 



DAMON, 509 

He will not allow any false sentiment "to finish with his class" 
prevent him from stopping out one or even two years during his college 
course in order to add to his store of practical experience along elec- 
trical or allied lines. 

He will determine for himself whether he intends to realize on 
his possibilities quickly or whether he will lay a broader foundation for 
a slower but higher development. 

General Design — Each bidder will state the percentage which he 
is prepared to guarantee in connection with the following qualities: 
Health Self-respect 

Ambition Self-reliance 

Honesty Courage 

Truthfulness Observation 

Temperance Common Sense 

Decision Initiative 

Purpose Enterprise 

Up-to-dateness Enthusiasm 

Originality Concentration 

Energy Executive Ability 

Industry Scholarship 

Stick-to-itiveness System 

Judgment Tact 

Good Manners Neatness 

Self-control Thoroughness 

Patience Dispatch 

Cheerfulness Grit 

Capacity for Hard Work. Punctuality 

Consideration will be given to guarantees of high efficiency of each 
item. It is suggested that all of these qualities be carefully measured. 

Capacity — Even if the young man possesses only ordinary talents, 
his capacity for hard, conscientious, intelligent, well-directed work will 
attract attention and win advancement. 

When the occasion demands, he will be able to stand a long run 
on overload or respond to excessive demands for short periods without 
permanent injury. 

He will be able to direct others and will not depend entirely upon 
his unaided efforts for results. 

Operation — He will work quietly, and will be turning in the right 
direction every minute in a simple, direct, and accurate way. 

He will join that great army of workers who are actually doing 
things rather than that smaller class of men who occupy most of their 
time in telling what they are going to do. 



510 OPPORTUNITIES IN THE ELECTRICAL BUSINESS, 

Parallel operation — ^As a student he will enroll as a member of 
the Student Branch of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers 
and take a lively interest in the Institute papers and discussions. In 
practice he will advance to Associate membership and will look forward 
to the day when he has added sufficient to the art to be considered worthy 
of Active membership. 

If he locates in Chicago or in the West he will become a working 
member of the Electrical Section of the Western Society of Engineers. 

He will make friends among his superiors, who will respect his 
ambitions and will be glad to assist him in realizing his ideals. 

He will study men and know how to deal with them. 

Work to he done by others — Parents should study their children 
and encourage them to develop their natural tendencies. 

Teachers should get hold of their students personally and as far as 
possible treat each case individually. 

More occasions should be made for successful men to meet students 
and give them the benefit of their advice and experience. 

The students should not be isolated in a little world of their own, 
but should be brought in contact with an atmosphere of actual affairs. 

Above all, some method must be devised to guide the young man 
to and through the course of practical experience best adapted to his 
qualifications and purpose in life. 

Shop tests — If he enters the shop or testing department of a manu- 
facturing company, he will make a bargain which will result in his 
getting an all around experience in exchange for his services ; and 
while in the shop, he will keep on the move in every sense of the word. 

He will seek to make himself thoroughly practical in all his ideas 
and methods of work. 

Finish — He will include in his preparations considerable literary 
work and will seek after a general culture. He will study at least one 
foreign language. 

He will regard his college work as only the beginning of his educa- 
tion and will be a student always. 

He will seek practice in the art of expressing himself, and will 
occasionally write a paper on some technical subject. 

He will become interested in some social, educational, or reform 
movement, and will avoid becoming a recluse interested only in his own 
work. 

Inspection — During his Senior year he will submit a thesis in com- 
petition for the Edison Medal; and even if he fails to get the prize, his 
effort will demonstrate his sincerity and will show the thoroughness and 
breadth of his preparation. 



DAMON. 511 

Fittings — He will find it necessary to possess accurate knowledge 
of nearly every branch of science, including physics, chemistry, mathe- 
matics, mechanics, pneumatics, hydraulics, mining, metallurgy, and civil 
engineering. 

He must know something about accounts and a great deal about 
business and commercial law. 

He will find that the electrical business is so broad in its scope that 
a natural aptitude in any direction can be made of use. 

Completion — He will make every sacrifice to get a thorough prep- 
aration and a broad experience up to the age of 28 or 30 years. 

He will accomplish much between the ages of 30 and 45, at the 
end of which time he will be well settled in his business or profession. 

Let us leave him at this time to inherit his own. May he live long 
and prosper. 



FORMULAS, THEIR USES AND ABUSES. 
By 

Dr. Alfred Hume. 

The reason why this paper was not included in the first edition is 
that the Editors considered that, notwithstanding its evident importance 
to young engineers, it would not be read to any great extent by engi- 
neer-students. On account of the probable demand for the work by 
young practicing engineers, they have concluded to insert it in the sec- 
ond edition, knowing that the advice it offers is of the soundest, and 
that if it be followed, much trouble will be avoided. 

The Editors in their practice have always observed the rule, never 
to use a rational formula of which they have not for themselves estab- 
lished the correctness, nor an empirical one with the derivation of which 
they are unacquainted ; and they have given such instructions and advice 
to their assistants and young engineer friends. No engineer of reputa- 
tion can afford to accept blindly the findings of other engineers and em- 
ploy them in his work. In the case of rational formulas, to do so would 
be an acknowledgment of mental inferiority; and in the case of em- 
pirical formulas, it would involve running too much risk of mistake and 
disaster. In applying any formula one needs to know, beyond a doubt, 
the units of measure in which all the components thereof are expressed, 
and this he cannot ascertain without investigating; hence a study of the 
formula is a necessity. 

Although this address may not be very interesting to underclass- 
men, it will do them no harm to peruse it; and certainly all upperclass- 
men should read it, become convinced of the correctness of its teachings, 
and resolve to abide by them throughout their professional careers. 

The address was first read in March, 1897, before the Engineering 
Association of the South by its author, who was then a practicing engi- 
neer. He has since accepted the chair of Mathematics in the University 
of Mississippi. 

It was reproduced in the Engineering Record of November 5, 1910; 
and in an editorial upon it there appeared the following comment: 'The 
paper points out very clearly the danger of furnishing too much predi- 
gested mental food to young men, no matter how good their attain- 
ments may be. The technical college is essentially a place for teaching 

513 



514 FORMULAS. 

the sciences upon which sound engineering is based. The more thoroughly 
the student is taught to question everything that comes before him for the 
first time, the better will he exercise the critical faculty which is essen- 
tial for successful engineering. It is surprising, nevertheless, to observe 
how readily many engineers, particularly young engineers, will accept 
and use without question a formula for any given purpose, while the 
relations which are expressed in that formula, if written out and ex- 
plained at length, would be rejected instantly, except for use in a very 
narrow field of application. For this reason it is probable that the 
students of civil engineering in the higher classes of our technical col- 
leges might well be required to read at least once each half year the 
paper by Professor Hume. Good formulas are admirable helps, but 
they should never be allowed to take the place of a clear understanding 
of the subject to which they relate." 

Alfred Hume was born at Beech Grove, Coffee County, Tenn., Dec. 
1, 1866, and studied in the public schools of Nashville, then at Vander- 
bilt University, where he took the degree of B. E. in 1887, that of C. E. 
in 1888, and that of D. Sc. in 1890. For three years he taught in var- 
ious departments of his alma mater, and in 1890 he was called to the 
chair of Mathematics in the University of Mississippi, where he has re- 
mained ever since. In 1900 he organized and directed the course in 
Civil Engineering, remaining in charge of the work two years. In 
1905 he became Vice Chancellor of the University and Dean of the 
Academic Department, and during the session of 1906-1907 he was 
Acting Chancellor. 

He is a member of several technical societies and the author of a 
number of valuable papers on mathematics and other professional sub- 
jects. 

Editors. 



FORMULAS, THEIR USES AND ABUSES. 

By 

Dr. Alfred Hume. 

In the development of scientific thought there are two marked ten- 
dencies, apparently opposed, but, in reality, both natural and necessary. 
Diversity is the word for the one, unity for the other. The first results 
in the discovery of a variety of facts, the second in their unification. To 
the one it would seem that no bounds can be set. Who has the presump- 
tion to limit the other? Amid a myriad of bewildering chemical phe- 
nomena stands the undoubted truth of the changelessness in the sum 
total of material things. If the one discourages human effort, no less 
does the other cheer to renewed exertion. Do the fall of the apple, the 
ebb and flow of the tides, planetary motions, demand explanation and 
seem to baffle every attempt to unify them? There is a oneness here — 
gravitation. Do the never-ceasing transformations of energy appear to 
defy any law of continuity and to appeal for some principle of perma- 
nence? An infinity of change without an iota of loss is the reply. And 
so throughout the entire realm of knowledge these two tendencies may 
go hand in hand, progress depending upon their interaction. Does the 
one confuse, mystify? The other simplifies, clarifies. Where one stag- 
gers the human intellect, the other steadies it. 

In some of the foregoing antithetical statements is a hint of one of 
the motives which cause men to seek broad generalizations. It is to 
avoid unnecessary labor, to economize mental effort. To those who can 
use intelligently the general truth, who can see the process by which the 
general was evolved from the special, there is here great gain, immense 
advantage, accompanied, however, by the danger of abuse. 

For the engineer and the mathematician, the most lucid and concise 
method of expressing laws is by means of formulas. With a few symbols 
and a little space, a record may be made which will embody the results 
of ages of labor on the part of eminent thinkers and of long series 
of experiments. This briefest possible statement of a truth, the out- 
come of a course of pure reasoning, or of this in connection with ex- 
periment, is a formula. It is a picture of mental energy. It is an 
embodiment of thought. When properly used it is thought enthroned, 
otherwise, imprisoned. It is not a dungeon where thought is chained, 

515 



S 32. 



516 FORMULAS. 

but rather a crystal palace where reason reigns. Used aright it is a 
blessing, misused it is a curse. Its true province is the preservation 
of truth, to the end that the user of it may have time and energy to 
bestow upon things above and beyond the formula. 

That the engineer should employ every time-saver that he can 
command is at once evident when attention is directed to the vast fields 
yet to be explored and the marvellous growth of engineering literature 
on which he must keep posted. A little more than one hundred years 
ago a book was published, the title page of which reads as follows: "A 
Treatise of Practical Surveying; which is demonstrated from its first 
principles. Wherein everything that is useful and curious in that art 
is fully considered and • explained." Think of it ! One small book 
containing all that was known of the theory and practice of surveying! 
What would be thought of an author making that claim now for a 
book of a thousand pages? A mere glance at the works on surveying, 
ranging from "Public Land Surveys of the United States," a descrip- 
tive, non-mathematical booklet intended for children in the public 
schools, to the technical treatise on geodesy, will convince one that no 
book smaller than Webster's International Dictionary would be justified 
in appropriating the title quoted above. And what has been said of 
this subject is equally true of many others with which the engineer 
constantly deals. Where fifty years ago there was one volume treating 
of civil engineering there are now hundreds of excellent works and 
scores of periodicals devoted to engineering in all its branches. Surely 
it would be the height of folly for a worker in these ever-widening 
fields to deny himself any legitimate assistance, be it a formula, or 
what not. Unnumbered problems are to-day calling for the brain 
energy thus saved. 

No man should be content to use a formula, the history and deri- 
vation of which he has not at some time or other become acquainted 
with. This does not mean that he should be able to originate it. Far 
from it. But, simply, that he should follow the line of thought by 
which it came into being. If he is unable to do this, the formula may 
become a dangerous implement in his hands. 

The aim at reduction to a minimum of unprofitable muscular and 
mental exertion has led to the calculation from formulas of tables too 
numerous to mention. Much labor has been expended in their pro- 
duction. How much greater the saving for those who use them! Log- 
arithmic tables alone have been of incalculable value. And yet men 
have not been satisfied with the long stride from numbers to their log- 
arithms, but have taken another important step from these to the slide 
rule. Both tables and calculating machines may very properly be de- 



HUME. 517 

nominated offsprings of formulas. And, because of their nature, they, 
too, are subject to abuse. 

It is not maintained that no one should handle these things unless 
he fully understands them. Probably the very large majority of skilled 
accountants have no adequate conception of the essential characteristics 
of our common system of notation, without which arithmetic could not 
have been developed. Not many could give a clear explanation of 
the fundamental arithmetical processes. While doubtless many an en- 
gineer has been conscious of the well-nigh irreparable loss sustained 
by the deprivation of his formulas and similar helps, very few practical 
arithmeticians have ever realized that they would be hopelessly hand- 
icapped if confined to the cumbersome Roman system of notation. And 
yet, adults in practice though babes in theory, well versed in rules while 
ignorant of reasons, masters of the art while strangers to the science, 
they can figure, and with greater rapidity and accuracy than can the 
average professional mathematician. Surely the person who would hold 
that these should be forbidden the use of figures would properly be set 
down as a fanatic. As well might we argue that no one should breathe 
imless he could tell the constituents of the atmosphere ; or that all 
should quit using water until they could make a chemical analysis of 
it. No such absurd position has been taken. But I do plant myself 
firmly upon the proposition that no one who has the time to acquaint 
himself thoroughly with the things with which he works, be they for- 
mulas, tables, or machines, is guiltless if he fails to do so. These, like 
blasting powder and dynamite, are powerful agencies, but unsafe in 
the hands of carelessness and ignorance. 

The plea is not for less mechanical dexterity, but more intelligent 
insight; not that one construct every piece of mechanism by which 
he lessens his labors, but that he grasp the underlying principle ; not 
that he calculate the table which he finds almost indispensable, but that 
he understand the process ; not that he deduce the formula, but that he 
appreciate the course of reasoning which leads to it. The man who is 
willing to use that which he does not understand is tempted to invest 
it with a kind of magic. He is its slave, not its master. He who thus 
uses a formula is, for the time at least, no more than a machine. There 
is in this a servility discouraging independence and unbecoming one 
of the most dignified and learned of the professions. 

In this connection should be noticed an objection, and a serious 
one it is, to the large number of handbooks and other helps available. 
The temptation is to substitute book for brain, hand for head, rule of 
thumb for reign of thought. A mere tyro becomes possessed with 
the idea that everything needful is tabulated and that he is equipped 



518 FORMULAS. 

as an engineer when he gets hold of a few tools, heedless of the fact 
that their office is to facilitate the execution of a project and not to 
create the plan. His error is like that of one who imagines that he 
can reproduce a landscape by manipulating a brush and stencil. His 
attitude is very much that of him who forgets that to be a musician 
implies far more than the ability to wind up a music box or turn the 
crank of a hand organ. Does he want the area of a section of a column 
or beam, its moment of inertia about the neutral axis, etc.? He looks 
it up in his table. Does he want a formula for pile driving? He can 
get them ad nauseam; and they will furnish such widely different re- 
sults that the novice should have his eyes opened to the fact that he 
lacks something necessary to successful practice. 

I must again emphatically disclaim all intention of belittling or 
underrating any of the contrivances to which reference has been made. 
These formulas, their developments, expansions, or accompaniments 
are of inestimable value. All are more or less familiar with their great 
utility. It is their abuses rather than their uses that we are prone to 
overlook. The limitations in the application of a formula are likely to 
be disregarded by him who is ignorant of its history and the process 
of its development. That class of people who have scant respect for 
the book-learned are not so deserving of censure as that even larger 
class who worship a printed page and deify a formula forgetting that 
it is a human product. These idolaters, whose credulity leaves no room 
for reason, are largely responsible for the existence of the sceptics and 
scorners who look with suspicion upon everything within the lids of a 
book. To both comes the injunction, "Prove all things; hold fast that 
which is good." 

That the conditions to be met in order to make a wise use of for- 
mulas may appear more clearly, the following classification is added. 
It, like all that has been said, is suggestive rather than exhaustive. Pass- 
ing by most of the formulas of pure mathematics — those of definition, 
identities, formal solution of equations, development of functions, etc., 
those of chemistry, symbols of molecules, and others which do not come 
within the scope of this paper — the consideration of two great classes 
of formulas with which engineers are most largely concerned is reached. 
The first class embraces those which follow from definitions and 
axioms and are therefore true of necessity. Formulas for center of 
gravity, moments of inertia, center of pressure, etc., belong here. But 
is one free from the danger of misapplying them? Assuredly not. The 
only guarantee of proper use is a comprehension of the theorems which 
pertain to them. Another of this class is the prismoidal formula whose 
beauty and power have not always been accorded the high place which 



HUME. 519 

they merit. The originator of this formula of such wide applicability, 
Jacob Steiner, is said to have been "the greatest geometrician since the 
time of Euclid." Not only does it apply to many solids bounded by 
plane and warped surfaces, but also to quite a large group of solids 
of revolution such as spheres, spheroids, etc., as well as to a vast num- 
ber of others not included in the above, among which may be men- 
tioned groined and cloistered arches. The failure to master the mean- 
ing of this remarkable formula has led to a multitude of blunders. 
Ignorance and prejudice have conspired against it. With all its wonder- 
ful fullness it yet has its limitations. There are forms to which it is 
not applicable. Well may the question be asked, Has it been most used, 
abused, or wholly neglected? A sound knowledge of the truth as crys- 
tallized in this formula will prevent its perversion, and will lead to its 
general adoption, in a modified form at least, in computing earthwork. 

A very important and useful set of formulas may be considered a 
sort of sub-class of the general one under discussion. The reference is 
to such as have been obtained from others of perfect accuracy by ne- 
glecting small quantities, and which therefore lead to approximations. 
A simple example is the formula which states that the middle ordinate 
of a rail is the square of its length divided by it radius of curvature. 

The second great class of formulas in constant use by engineers is 
the empirical. In them are recorded much that is valuable in engineer- 
ing experience, and much, too, calculated to discourage painstaking 
accuracy and to betray over-confidence. He who runs into no error 
here must know his ground thoroughly. Tests in hundreds of labora- 
tories, measurements in all quarters, are brought together and made to 
speak volumes in a few formulas. Here we catch a glimpse of the field 
of greatest activity and promise that the engineering profession is work- 
ing to-day. Mathematicians have done their part, and it has been well 
done. But there still remains a work which is distinctively the engi- 
neer's. It is his to continue the investigation of the materials of en- 
gineering until he can use the formulas of this class with as much re- 
liance and assurance as those of the other. Here is a task of extreme 
difficulty. But the obstacle which this profession cannot surmount has 
yet to be found. 

Of this class there are two divisions. In the first are those in 
which the form of equation connecting the observed or given quan- 
tities and the required is known from theoretical considerations, certain 
coefficients being empirical constants. The formula which expresses the 
fact that the distance through which a body falls from rest equals the 
product of some constant and the square of the time, is one of this sub- 
class. The law of dependence is known ; the form of the function is 



520 FORMULAS, , , , 

given; the times are the observed quantities, the distance the quantity 
whose values are to be determined, the only empirical part of the formula 
being the constant coefficient, one-half the acceleration due to gravity. 

In very many cases, however, the form of the equation which ex- 
presses the connection between observed and required quantities is un- 
known and must be assumed; and we have the other sub-class, wholly 
empirical. As an illustration, examine the formulas that have been 
devised for the mean velocity of water in rivers and canals in terms 
of the maximum surface velocity and other variables. Not only do the 
coefficients differ but the forms of the equations vary greatly. So with 
the formulas for columns, sewer formulas, pile-driving formulas. Dif- 
ferent investigators have arrived at such diverse results as almost to 
force to the conclusion that no formula can be obtained that is generally 
applicable. While waiting for, and confidently expecting, the discovery 
of the law which governs in the several cases, it behooves all who use 
these formulas to take care lest they abuse them. Nowhere else is the 
necessity for a complete knowledge of the history of a formula so im- 
perative. 

In constructing formulas, attention should be given to the follow- 
ing points: They should be simple rather than complicated and elabo- 
rate, resulting in ease of computation. Whenever possible (and some- 
times it is) they should be so constructed as to avoid the use of factors 
of safety. In other words, it should be safe to use them without intro- 
ducing these ''factors of ignorance." Conformity with theory should be 
sought. Rational formulas are to be preferred. Practical formulas 
must be constructed from experiments involving conditions actually 
existing in real work. They should be so made that, in limiting cases, 
they will give results accordant with both theory and practice. Some, 
in pretty general use, reduce to absurdities under these hypotheses. 
Finally, great stress should be laid upon uniformity in the notation em- 
ployed. If practicable, each letter should always be used to represent 
one and the same thing; and the symbols selected should bear some 
relation to the thing symbolized, as p for perimeter, m for bending mo- 
ment, etc. 

In the use of formulas it were well to bear in mind a few guiding 
principles. The desirability, yes, necessity, of intimate acquaintance 
with the history of the formula has already been insisted on. How else 
can one make sure of its applicability to the problem in hand ? If 
empirical, ascertain whether or not the experiments from which the 
constants were determined were made under conditions like those which 
obtain in the work to which the formula is to be applied. Caution is 
necessary here. It should never be forgotten that a formula cannot be 



HUME. 521 

used with safety in work outside the range of observed cases. Formulas 
resulting from experiments on small pieces are often unreliable when 
applied to larger ones. Those intended to be used within certain limits 
must not be used beyond them. In making calculations with formulas, 
logarithms, etc., time should not be wasted in attempting a precision 
and making a show of accuracy unwarranted by the character of the 
formula itself, the field measurements, or the degree of refinement or 
nicety possible or desirable in the work to which the results are to be 
applied. Too often mistakes are made here, and deception may be sus- 
pected where none was intended and where judgment alone was to 
blame. Care should be exercised in getting correctly the denomination 
represented by the letters, whether feet, inches, or meters; hours or 
seconds; pounds, ounces, or kilograms. Lastly, it is of importance that 
one know to which of the above classes and sub-classes a formula be- 
longs. Such knowledge will be of no little service. 



THE ELEMENTS OF EFFECTIVE EDUCATION. 

By 
Professor John Lane Van Ornum. 

The following most instructive, valuable, and thoughtful paper was 
issued after. the first edition of this book had gone to press, which ac- 
counts for the Editors' failure to utilize it previously. It offers one of 
the most profound treatments of the subject of education ever written — 
in fact, it may appear at first thought to be too profound for students' 
reading; but such is not really the case, as several careful studies of it 
will certainly impress upon any reader's mind many truly valuable facts 
and ideas. While it is possible that a large percentage of freshmen stu- 
dents may fail to obtain much benefit from it at first, it is certain that 
ultimately they will profit greatly by its continued perusal. The treat- 
ment is eminently philosophical, and on this account the address has to 
be read slowly and carefully with mind undisturbed by either outside 
impressions or wandering thoughts. It was evidently written for teach- 
ers and not for students ; nevertheless, no student makes a mistake when 
he devotes a moderate portion of his spare time to the study of papers 
which are intended to influence and guide his instructors in their treat- 
ment and development of himself. 

Professor Van Ornum very properly dwells at length on the ne- 
cessity for developing the student's capacity for thought rather than fill- 
ing his mind with useful facts and figures. In this principle lies the 
true science of technical teaching; for while facts and figures change 
from time to time and are easily forgotten, the capacity to think for one- 
self when once attained is seldom, if ever, lost. 

Professor Van Ornum, who occupies the chair of Civil Engineering 
at the Washington University, St. Louis, is a recognized leader in his 
line of work and an authority on matters educational, all of which is an 
additional reason for the study of this important address. His biograph- 
ical record is as follows : 

He was born in Hartford, Vermont, May 14, 1864, and was graduat- 
ed from the University of Wisconsin as B. S. in 1888, receiving special 
honors in mathematics and general honors on graduation. In 1891 he 
obtained the degree of C. E. from the same institution. He has held 
responsible positions on municipal, railway, and government engineering 

523 



524 EFFECTIVE EDUCATION. 

works in Wisconsin, Michigan, Tennessee, Missouri, Georgia, and Florida, 
aggregating six years. He was Chief Topographer of the Mexican 
Boundary Survey from 1892 to 1894, and visited Europe to inspect engi- 
neering works and schools in 1897 and 1898. He was Major of the Third 
United States Volunteer Engineers in 1898 and 1899, serving in the war 
with Spain, and has been Professor of Civil Engineering in Washington 
University since 1899. In addition to his teaching, he is actively en- 
gaged in various civic enterprises and interests of St. Louis. 

He is author of technical papers on Topographical Surveying, Hy- 
drographical Surveying, Structural Engineering, Fire Prevention, and In- 
surance Rates, and was the pioneer investigator and writer on the sub- 
ject of the Fatigue of Concrete. 

He is a member of many of the leading technical societies of Amer- 
ica, and has been President of the St. Louis Engineers' Club. 

Editors. 



THE ELEMENTS OF EFFECTIVE EDUCATION 

By 

Professor John Lane Van Ornum. 

It is the purpose of the college to develop knowledge in such a way 
that the student, responding to its inspiration as the chord thrills in 
answer to its tone, shall discover in himself a constructive power, quick- 
ening into action. Such productive knowledge is the result of a sys- 
tematic evolution, especially through childhood and youth, of various la- 
tent capabilities. Distinctive among these potential attributes, which edu- 
cation should make very actual, are those of a conscious individuality 
which finds expression in self-direction, gradually increasing in power 
and equipoise; and of a personal sense of duty which prepares for as- 
suming responsibilities. The multitude of facts and conceptions form 
the material from which is developed the educational structure of the 
boy; but whether this structure adequately serves its master depends 
upon the manner of fabrication of these materials. A certain mass of 
information may be only a clog, or it may be fashioned into an effective 
edifice. The waters of the harbor at half-tide carry a steamship onto 
the bar. If the tide is falling, it lies helpless; but if rising, the vessel 
is freed from its impediment. The rising tide of mental capacity comes 
from developing individual initiative and personal responsibility as the 
the essential motives which vivify the training of the schools. 

The child displays a marvellous capacity to master the powers of 
speech, of locomotion, and of those other primary faculties needed to 
enable him to supply the immediate requirements of his physical nature. 
His- own initiative spurs him on in learning to talk and walk, to watch, 
to endeavor, to develop a startling capacity of asking ''what" and "how" 
and 'Svhy," and gradually to think and reason about those evident things 
of life which directly concern the satisfaction of his physical needs and 
desires. In all these first years the spur, the unconsciously impelling 
force, is within the child himself; and his educational progress in the 
inherent but elementary facts of life is, therefore, thorough and rapid. 

If the same need, interest, and initiative were continued through the 
subsequent years, undoubtedly progress would continue, even in an ac- 
celerating ratio and efficiency, rather than at a diminishing rate that 
often approaches stagnation. Whether one's education be in the schools 

525 



526 EFFECTIVE EDUCATION. 

or in other institutions or experiences, that only is a true education which 
systematically develops and trains the mental powers in effective prepara- 
tion for the duties of life. If the adequate exercising, instructing, cul- 
tivating, and coordinating of one's powers is secured by individual effort 
under stress of adverse conditions and outside the schools, as was true 
in the case of Lincoln or John Marshall, surely we can only admire and 
endorse the achievement, although the result was attained in a way quite 
unorthodox. If one fits himself for life's duties in commercial activities, 
as did Robert Morris ; or in business affairs, as did Benjamin Franklin ; 
or if, like Jefferson, through the aid of schools and colleges one trains 
his youthful faculties toward the control and mastery of the experiences 
of life ; in any case the goal is reached in some degree of completeness, 
though the routes may vary. Yet, always and ever, the unvarying es- 
sential is that individual initiative, that mental craving which demands 
sustenance and will not be denied; making use of all agencies (whether 
schools or others) that offer effective aid. 

The schools take the child at that particularly critical age at which 
the motive is less manifest. The incentive to personal effort is becoming 
less obvious. Through the primary and grammar school age, the in- 
creasing obscurity to the child of the purpose and value of his training is 
very likely to bring him to an attitude of indifference, if not of opposition. 
Perhaps the greatest general trial of faith which the young pupil experi- 
ences is when he is expected, in his immaturity, to orient his inner con- 
sciousness to what seems a vague (if not unknown) course. Fortunate 
is the child who is shown at least occasional glimpses of the less obvious 
domain he is preparing to share, through the wise guidance of parent or 
teacher, or because of the stress of adversity or circumstance. 

Probably no greater service to mankind has ever been rendered 
than that of pioneer investigators who endeavored to disclose the essen- 
tial elements of true instruction : Rousseau emphasizing the necessity of 
the pupil's learning through observation and experience ; Pestalozzi 'lay- 
ing stress upon development by progressive effort; Froebel adding the 
essential idea of developing the faculties by arousing voluntary activities ; 
and the second principle of Jacotot affirming the truth upon which the 
fundamental principle must be based, that ''every individual has re- 
ceived from God the faculty of being able to instruct himself." 

The child cannot master the rudiments of the (to him) obscure 
realm of the mind through direct constraint from without. His own in- 
itiative must be awakened and his faith be given some conscious support 
on which to rest. The vivifying moisture enters the tree in response to 
the inner call of life and growth ; water forced into it by external press- 



VAN ORNUM. 527 

ure would add nothing to its strength. Not the mercenaries, but the 
Macedonian phalanx inspired victories. External compulsion gives op- 
portunity for defective or fruitless consequences; while a desire or de- 
mand from within constitutes the fertile field for ready development. 

The teacher who fails to develop the child's initiative (which has 
served him so well in his mastery of the elemental attributes of life) as 
the child enters upon the less perceptible intellectual domain, is perpetrat- 
ing a wrong that is less obvious, but no less culpable, than if he should 
deprive the child of needed food. A tactful, firm, inspiring guidance 
toward the essence of knowledge by appeal to the sensibilities, interests, 
desires, and enthusiasms will give heart and purpose to the young 
learner. 

However great be the responsibility of the teacher in this regard, 
the obligation of the parent to guide the child's mind into a growing con- 
sciousness of the significance of the mental realm is paramount. With 
school privileges universal, parents easily sink into a condition of careless 
or indolent neglect, allowing the child to grope vaguely for the unknown 
truths or to lose his bearings altogether. The interest of parents is 
earlier devoted to protecting the child from falls, burns, and other physi- 
cal injuries and pains ; but he would easily learn caution for himself 
because of the immediately consequent physical penalties. Yet, when 
the child enters upon the conquest of the vague but profound mental 
domain, his nurture is often really left to strangers who are workmen in 
the child-factory whose output is of the pattern prescribed, as the sub- 
jects are passed wholesale through one department after another in non- 
individualizing progression. In the schools the numbers are so consider- 
able that, with the best of intent, the general submergence of the individ- 
ual child into an aggregate average is almost unavoidable, unless the 
parent also discharges his duty discriminatingly. This duty is not to dia- 
gram the sentences or to ''do the sums," or to perform for the child his 
daily tasks ; his exercises are the work of the child himself, and such sup- 
posed assistance is a detriment rather than an aid, substituting a dummy 
of expediency for the substance of real benefit. Father is it the privilege 
of the parent, by virtue of his relation to the child, gradually and oppor- 
tunely to disclose to the expanding spirit the purpose and significance of 
his tasks; to reveal the import of the work in the intangible but para- 
mount realm of the mind ; to interest and inspire the child progressively 
(as only a parent can) to a definite perception of the reality of those 
things most worth while. L apprehend that there is no greater funda- 
mental immorality of the present day than the indifference of a parent 
to the wavering apperception of his child. 

A youth in his teens has reached the age at which responsibilities 



528 EFFECTIVE EDUCATION, 

must be assumed in his pursuit of information. Longer to delay the in- 
auguration of a substantial development of a distinct and personal con- 
ception of duty in its relation to life's experiences is to suspend, in equal 
measure, the mental and moral growth. The feeble-minded has little 
capacity for such accomplishment, and the idiot none at all; but the 
average youth should not (by reason of mistaken consideration, negli- 
gence, or misapprehension) be allowed to pattern his training after that 
which is fitting for either unfortunate. 

The boy on the farm has his responsibilities which conduce to the 
development of mental capacity in a way that, in spite of less opportunity 
for study, often results in a more effective education than is secured by 
the city boy having abundant school privileges. The youth from the 
straitened home, subjected to the discipline of business house or factory, 
is obliged to rely upon his own resources if he "makes good;" and if he 
does not succeed, the result is, to him, conspicuously serious. His ex- 
periences with men and things directly tend to induce the development 
of those personal qualities of observation and concentration; of energy, 
perseverance, and originality; of accuracy and thoroughness; of courage 
and resourcefulness, which are relatively difficult to evolve in school life. 
Such a training of youth gives meager opportunity for study; but the 
far-seeing boy apprehends the deficiency, and corrects it. Self-help is 
forced, if this youth wins success. 

On the other hand, the scholar finds the schools chiefly active in im- 
parting knowledge. Their methods facilitate the informing more than 
the training of youth ; they consist in offering rather than in disclosing, 
in giving instead of judiciously developing. The system is quantitative 
rather than qualitative; it tends toward dissipation instead of concentra- 
tion, and it develops capacity more than capability. The result is ab- 
sorption rather than assimilation, and the encouragement of a "submissive 
receptivity" instead of an "independent activity." "It is not the knowl- 
edge stored up as intellectual fat, which is of value; but that which is 
turned into intellectual muscle." Such scholastic experiences give mea- 
ger opportunity for acquiring individual responsibility ; but the energetic 
boy is conscious of the need and corrects it. Self-discipline is attained 
if this youth gains the goal. 

In either case, the moral effect (on the personality) of conscious 
achievement is profound. 

The difficulties confronting the employed boy, with reference to lack 
of opportunities for instruction, are being moderated by various manifest 
means. There is vastly less recognition of the equal need that the scholar 
encounter such discipline as will induce him gradually to assume respon- 
sibilities, definitely and unequivocally. 



VAN ORNUM. 529 

The duty of the teacher is not merely to enforce regularity anil 
punctuality, order, attention, diligence, and earnestness; these are only 
the outward manifestations of the deeper ultimate purpose — that of awak- 
ening in the pupil an effective control of his own time and effort which 
makes real progress and ultimate attainment possible. Again, the copy- 
ing of problems and translations, the "working for the answer," the me- 
chanical memorizing of the text, the use of a "pony," or the utilization 
of the complaisant teacher or parent who thus becomes the living "pony," 
are but the deplorable evidence of the real malady; that of a lamentable 
reluctance to accept that discipline which finally develops into personal 
power to think clearly, reason definitely, and act worthily in the circum- 
stances of life. In composition it is simpler to utilize the mediocre facil- 
ity already attained than it is to gain added ability in exposition and 
diction by painstaking scrutiny and reflection ; in geometry it is easier to 
memorize the text than to master the principles by original demonstra- 
tion, closing the book after reading only the theorem; in all the daily 
tasks the drift is toward expediency instead of principle, the fostering of 
flaccidity rather than firmness of mental and moral fiber. Evasion is the 
fundamental delinquency of the school. 

The gliding waters flow heedlessly onward toward the passive sea ; 
only the portion which meets a designed constraint fulfills the fitting 
destiny of more than incidental service to mankind. The scholar who 
squarely meets responsibilities develops a conscious potency which 
qualifies him for confident endeavor. 

The purpose of the college is to give the student the opportunity 
for acquiring a substantial capital of productive knowledge and mental 
power. His prior education is in preparation for this, both as regards 
his fund of accumulated information and his training in those attributes 
which equip him for consistent and effective effort. If his previous ex- 
periences in the pursuit of learning have given him a developing capacity 
for personal initiative, thoroughness, and responsibility (at those periods 
of childhood and youth when they are most readily gained), the student 
is well equipped to profit from his college course. The college which 
receives youth who are seriously lacking in these fundamental essentials 
must discard the hopelessly deficient ones ; and, with the rest, either lab- 
oriously mitigate the fault or ignore the delinquency under the pressure 
of the college system. The orchard whose pruning, fertilization, and 
care have been slighted, may recover some of its promise by precarious 
processes of "forcing ;" or, igrnored, it produces but sparingly. In either 
case the fruitage induced by the sunlight and rains is both deficient and 
defective. The colleges and professional schools have such severe bur- 
dens in their own legitimate province that it is well-nigh impossible for 



530 EFFECTIVE EDUCATION. "^ 

them to attempt also to assume inherited burdens, and expect success. 

The advantageous assumption and natural sequence of the various 
duties and requisites of the complete educational training are relatively 
simple and effective if their import is clearly apprehended ; but if their 
true significance is unrecognized, evaded, or regarded triflingly, difficul- 
ties accumulate until the aggregate impediment cripples the endeavor. 
Failure to profit adequately from a college course is even more conspicu- 
ously serious than are most failures, because that which is the manifest 
summit of the educational system is equally the obvious target for ag- 
gregated criticism whether induced by distrust of the distinction resulting 
from commanding position and large endowment; from the endeavor to 
shift responsibility for a delinquent graduate from all the various contrib- 
uting causes to the ultimate one ; or from the sturdy capacity of the cap- 
able graduate who will not remain indefinitely a mere tool in the mechan- 
ism of organized proprietorship. It is agreeable for some parents who 
have negelected their own part in the youth's training, to evade direct 
reproach by designating the college for this notice. There is a seeming 
expediency in charging the final factor of education with any apparent 
delinquency, and the floods of reproach often obscure the real situation. 
Just criticism is helpful ; but many who sit in judgment seem to have had 
unfortunate personal experiences, or to employ devious processes of rea- 
soning, or they exhibit a warped mental vision. There is occasion for 
improvement in the college as well as elsewhere; and all the agencies 
concerned may well unite in the endeavor to augment the real effective- 
ness of each step of the educational course. 

Success in any field awaits only him who qualifies for it, and such 
searching tests should be applied as will most clearly disclose the fun- 
damental aptitudes of the boy, including his capability to profit from 
the advanced training of the schools. Much disconcerting stress and in- 
effective effort would be avoided if the higher schools were less fre- 
quently regarded as the reservoir of an elixir of miraculous potency. 
Intellectual emaciation is not cured by augmenting the scholarly diet that 
has resulted in a mental dyspepsia. It would be better for the parent, 
the boy, the school, the college, and all concerned, if the colleges should 
more rigidly scrutinize the essential qualifications of applicants for ad- 
mission, instead of often soliciting attendance even of the doubtful and 
reluctant ones whose progress is gravely problematical because personal 
incentive and mental vigor are lacking. The inner motive and real apti- 
tude of the student who wins success must be more than embryonic ; op- 
portunity evades the dilettante postulant. 

If the child's essential initiative, constituting the impelling influence 
in acquiring his ascendency over material things, has been induced to per- 



FAN ORNUM. 531 

sist as the same active agency in gaining a command of the intangible 
mental realm ; and if the youth's sense of duty has been developed so far 
that he inclines to assume responsibilities in connection with his personal 
interests; then the information of the scholar normally grows into the 
knowledge of the student, and the latent capacity foreshadows the actual 
capability. The college is thereby enabled so to direct the student that 
the potential material accumulated in the school will not only be aug- 
mented with increasing definiteness, but also its pertinence and signifi- 
cance will become established by a systematic analyzing and comparing, 
testing and verifying, estimating and reasoning, correlating and coordi- 
nating of the intellectual store, as the mind matures. 

A few generations ago the character of the necessary mental equip- 
ment was relatively simple; but with the rapidly augmenting aggregate 
of knowledge and the greatly increased complexity of human relations, 
the training of youth necessarily involves continually expanding obliga- 
tions which the college alone cannot meet. With its services must be 
leagued the influence and aid of other interests, particularly that of the 
parents, in the mutual duty of encouraging and preparing a firm foun- 
dation of potential mental power. To be effective, this signifies the grad- 
ual and definite winning, by the student, of ability to comprehend the 
various interests, concerns, and influences which actuate men ; of cap- 
ability to realize, with growing penetration, the motives and aspirations 
which control humanity; and of power to discern, with maturing in- 
sight, the profound significance of this essential knowledge upon his own 
life's activities. Evident as such facts are to the man of affairs and to 
the efficient instructor, they are vague to the average youth. It is the 
awakening of his conscious perception to the reality of these obscure but 
vital truths which constitutes the essence of true college training. 

The necessity is not so much to inform the student of bare facts, 
current practice, or mere details of social, commercial, or professional 
life; if such were the need, it would be better secured by active partici- 
pation in such affairs. The actual worth of a college education lies, 
rather, in the opportunity to equip the student with those attributes of 
mind which will fit him to meet and solve successfully the various prob- 
lems of life in a broad and sane way, as they shall be encountered, by 
disclosing to his developing perception (while it Is yet plastic) the fun- 
damental fact that all the activities of material and spiritual life are 
subject to law, whether it be clearly evident (as to the child who pays 
the penalty for carelessness in the pain of the resulting Injury) or wheth- 
er it be complex and obscure (as to the man whose character is a crys- 
tallization of the aggregate influences which he has embraced during all 
the preceding years). The real field and valuable work of the college 



S3 



532 . EFFECTIVE EDUCATION. 

are concerned with the underlying principles producing an effect, rather 
than with only the evident result itself. When this broad grasp of fun- 
damental truth is attained by the student, the essential work of the col- 
lege is, for him, achieved ; because experience itself is the ultimate teach- 
er whose training is made definitely effective through the discipline of 
the college in refining the crude mind. Such breadth of training is attain- 
ed with difficulty in the disjointed, fragmentary experiences of youthful 
employment ; or by the bare, encyclopedic information imparted by some 
schools in which exists ''the soul of evil in things good." The college 
exists for the essential purpose of vitalizing the student's knowledge by 
disclosing the fundamental truth of the rule of law in all the affairs of 
life. 

The universe in all its relations is governed by law, much of which 
is known, and which is as definite as anything conceivable "by the human 
mind. Eclipses are predicted with precision ; the orbit of a planet, once 
determined, is known for all time, unless there should occur an improb- 
able disturbance, — 'which is never fortuitous. The earth is subject to 
law, both in its structure and in its changes. By studying its phenom- 
ena we can determine the causes, operating through fixed principles, 
which produce the observed results; and the future is known from the 
past and present, with the precision in which the operating causes are 
determined, and until a remotely possible contingency occurs to intro- 
duce a modified order of things still obedient to law. By examining the 
structure of the world we can apprehend the history of the agencies pro- 
ducing it with an accuracy approximating the truth as closely as the 
observed facts disclose the principles which combine to affect the result. 
Here the essential truths are only partly mathematical, and the demon- 
strated conclusions are less absolute than those of cosmic motion. The 
principles of crystallization are fixed, but the form may be modified by 
the disturbing influence of other laws. So, too, with solution and depo- 
sition, liquefaction and solidification, pressure, stress, deformation, 
erosion, transportation, and all the phenomena of geologic development; 
the truth is discerned in the measure that all the contributing facts are 
correctly apprehended. 

In the field of effort which utilizes the forces and resources of nature 
for the advantage of man, the structures and machines securing these 
benefits are developed through the application of principles very definite 
in their fundamental competency. Design is adequate to the extent to 
which all pertinent laws are apprehended and applied, and is doubtful 
only so far as some conditions are variable or vague. 

In the living world the same fundamental operation of law governs, 
but often with less clearness, due to a freer opportunity for modifying in- 



VAN ORNUM. 533 

fluences to act. The basic principles of form, distribution, structure, 
growth, and function of plant life, and persistent modifications which 
finally lead to the development of new species and genera, are all mani- 
festations of complexity which seem sadly confused, but which, when 
all the essential facts are determined, are finally seen to be the direct re- 
sultant of all the various laws concerned, each influencing the product in 
proportion to its pertinence. In the animal kingdom the same truths 
govern, but with increased intricacy due to various added factors, such 
as mobility, instinct, and sensation, producing a heterogeneous aggregate 
of effects that seemed baffling, indeed, until the great pioneers of re- 
search, each in a limited field, discovered that here also each phenomenon, 
small or great, whether it be the color of the fur or the recognition of 
evolution, is a product of interacting conditions and influences producing 
results in harmony with law. 

What, then, of human life? Can principles control in all else but 
this? Rather do we know, in our physical existence, that cause and 
effect are as sure as in other realms of nature. We also apprehend the 
existence of a fundamental order and system in affairs of the mental 
sphere, whether it concerns a relatively simple thing, such as memory, or 
whether it involves complex combinations of various effects of the per- 
ceptions, the sensibilities, and the will. So, too, in the domain of morals 
do we anticipate the control of law in producing the effect, although the 
influence of the disposition, emotions, desires, and aspirations is so often 
exceedingly obscure. In the spiritual life we again infer the same essen- 
tial rule of principle, governing in truth this realm so recondite and rare. 
The multiplicity of the contributing influences and the obscurity of many 
of the causes affecting a result often appear so chaotic that its systematic 
consideration seems quite hopeless ; and yet it is the reduction of apparent 
chaos to its elements of actual order and law, in things small or great, 
which characterizes productive power. 

The definite apprehension of this fundamental truth distinguishes 
true education, however secured. The college curriculum in its various 
courses utilizes facts and truths as the materials of its work ; and the 
danger lies in adding indefinitely such materials of mere knowledge be- 
cause their range is so illimitable. Yet real efficiency results only as 
thought is vitalized by training the student to a clear apprehension of the 
pertinence, relation, and significance of such facts to the varied interests 
of life's activities. The paints which the artist uses constitute the mater- 
ials of his work ; it is only when these materials are expertly spread upon 
the canvas, to disclose to others that picture which had been imaged 
solely in the artist's mind, that the cheap pigment becomes the priceless 
painting. In college the bare materials of study and experience are of 



534 EFFECTIVE EDUCATION. 

little value until transformed by thoughtful assimilation into a productive 
capital of order and principle, which reaches beyond the obvious surface 
of things and discerns the elemental factors and fundamental laws which 
produce the observed results. 

How, then, can educational methods be vitalized? The details are 
infinite in variety, but the principles are simple. Teach in a broad, tol- 
erant, tactful way constructively to develop the student's power of original 
observation, demonstration, and reasoning, even though it robs the 
teacher of the self-satisfying prestige of too frequently arousing the 
admiration of his class when he displays to the student those things which 
the latter should be trained to discover for himself. Teach to correlate 
and combine the essence of the scientific method (which is systematic 
exactitude) with that of classic study (which particularly trains for breadth 
and power) ; so that precision of analysis may be blended with such ful- 
ness of information and such readiness to use it that abstruse inflexibilit} 
and vague generalization may both be avoided; and so securing to the 
student a realization of that scholarly aptitude, efficiency, and poise 
which will lead to mastery, through method, in dealing with the varied 
experiences of life. Teach to make clear the distinction between an 
absolute truth and an inference, between a principle that is certain and 
one which is more or less conjectural; because the affairs of life are 
affected by uncertainties, varying in degree, and the result is certain only 
to the extent to which the contributing principles are definitely germane. 
Teach to develop mental discipline fundamentally ; to conserve and fortify 
physical, mental, and moral vigor, which are the natural endowment of 
youth ; to systematize and control effectively the distribution of time and 
effort, which furnishes the opportunity for attainment, so that the waste 
of procrastination and inadvertence may be avoided and a substantial 
mental capital be won. Teach to think so rationally that neither un- 
certainty nor intolerance results ; to reason so clearly that knowledge shall 
not deteriorate into either barren information or pedantic speculation ; to 
consider so discerningly that there is no room for vacillation or arro- 
gance ; to know so truly that learning shall not degenerate into either 
conjecture or dogmatism. 

Ideals, such as these, are not Utopian. To the discerning teacher 
they form the standard toward which he ever leads, whose inspiration 
effectively pervades the daily detail of class work, giving vitality and 
heart to the duties which otherwise might lapse into automatic routine, 
and crowning sustained effort with recurring evidences of youthful lives 
responding to the spirit, as well as to the form, in college work. To the 
student so led, the college curriculum becomes revealed as a special op- 
portunity for him to prepare for effective service; the true significance 



VAN ORNUM. 535 

of his duties is disclosed as he increasingly realizes that it is his personal, 
discriminating, constructive endeavor which secures for him a potential 
power readily available for effective use; the college interests assume a 
larger import as he discovers that the personal influence of his class- 
room guides, while insisting on thorough and faithful study, also encour- 
ages those collateral activities of wholesome college and social life which 
effectively supplement class-room work in developing a broad, well-bal- 
anced character ; and the discipline of his various tasks is given point and 
purpose as he grows to distinguish the vital principles disclosed through 
their mastery. The way is open for the youth to become the man, for 
capacity to attain capability, for enthusiasm to expand into zeal, for power 
to achieve command, and for knowledge to develop into wisdom, as 
the opportunities of active life shall give form and substance to his 
intent. 



CLOSING LECTURE TO SENIOR CLASS. 

By 

Professor Vladimir Karapetoff. 

• 
The 'appeal of this address should reach directly to the heart of 
every newly fledged engineer; for its sound rings true, and the cor- 
rectness of its dictum cannot be gainsaid. It is not every professor 
who will risk losing popularity with his students by talking plainly 
to them, as Prof. Karapetoff does, concerning matters purely per- 
sonal and not in any way connected with the curriculum. All honor 
to him, then, for his courage and his broad-mindedness; and may he 
long continue to discourse to young men concerning the ethics of 
life and the moral responsibilities of students and engineers! 

Editors. 



537 



CLOSING LECTURE TO SENIOR CLASS. 
By 

Professor Vladimir Karapetoff. 

I have delivered the last lecture in your course but there is still one 
more to give you that is not usually included in works on electrical 
engineering. It is on the text: "Cash up" or to be more literary, "pay 
your accounts." 

You soon shall hear plenty of advice in regard to the wisdom of 
life. I wish to impress on your minds that you cannot start your 
life aright until you shall have closed your present accounts. Pay your 
debts. Return that borrowed book and those other articles, such as golf 
sticks, tennis rackets, and the like. Also repair all damage that you 
have done purposely or inadvertently. Do this so that you can look 
every man, woman, and child now in Ithaca straight in the face. 
But this is merely the beginning of the closing of your accounts, the 
"prelim." 

See other students with whom you have had some difficulty or 
"contre-temps," shake hands and say you are sorry for the mishap 
and that you wish the slate wiped out. Then there are other '09 men 
and women against whom you felt somewhat distant or hostile, per- 
haps on account of differences in temperament, tastes, or finances. 
Was it due to a bit of jealousy? 

Well, are you not afraid to carry a big burden all through life? 
Better go to those you liked the least, clasp both their hands (alle- 
gorically if you like) and look into their eyes. Look, I say and look 
again, and as you are looking, the sham images that your mind created 
will gradually disappear. Then you both will see each other in the true 
light as perfect children of God, trying each to solve his or her life's 
problem to the best of one's understanding. You should do this more- 
over, for you need each other's help and sympathy. 

Do you still begrudge your landlady the small things that she 
did or neglected to do? How about yourself? What about your 
omissions and commissions? It is all over now. Soon will you shake 
ofT the dust of Ithaca, but before doing so tell your landlady that you 
are sorry about that disturbance you made and the broken chair that 
resulted and also the small fire started by throwing lighted matches in 

539 



540 CLOSING LECTURE TO SENIOR CLASS. 

the waste basket. Also the damage you did to the wall by driving 
nails to hang up those interesting pictures. But above all be actually 
sorry. Don't sham about it. 

The Faculty and the registrar certainly did not treat you right on 
all occasions, for they are human, of course. What are you going to 
do about it? Are you going to poison the joys of coming years by 
carrying such reminders home with you? Settle your accounts now 
and for all time as far as Ithaca is concerned. A great Russian writer 
has well said, "To know all is to forgive all." 

Put yourselves in their places and see if you cannot allow some 
extenuating circumstance. If not, live the same occurrence over again 
in your mind and imagine the guilty person to act right. Then when- 
ever you remember the incident later on always see it in the ideal light. 
In this life of ups and downs, play for the ups and ignore the downs. 

Do not be in a hurry to leave Ithaca. Close first the university 
life's account. For several days after you have finished your work 
here go up to the campus, sit down under a spreading tree on the 
quadrangle and watch calmly the procession. Recall the memories 
of the days gone by and live that university life over again. Live it 
in the true ideal way and then leave Ithaca as men, reconciled and 
refreshed, prepared for the active, the energetic, the truly efficient life. 



THE HUMAN SIDE OF THE ENGINEERING PROFESSION. 

By 

Professor Vladimir Karapetoff. 

The place of honor in this collection of addresses is reserved 
for Prof. Karapetoff's thoughtful and masterly presentation of advice 
to young engineers. In no other v^riting have the Editors ever seen 
so many sound precepts in such a condensed form. All that is said is 
so terse, so true, and so appealing that one cannot but admire the 
author's thorough conception of both the practical and the ethical life. 
No thinking man can peruse this address without desiring to read it 
again ana agam ; and each time he reads it he v^ill receive new benefit. 

No man could conceive such profound ideas and use such stirring 
words as these without truly feelmg and meaning them from the 
bottom of his heart; and although the Editors have never yet had the 
pleasure of making Prof. Karapetoff's acquaintance, they desire here 
to express their appreciation of him as a writer and as an ethicist, also 
their hope that he will continue in the future to give to the world the 
benefit of his earnest thoughts and lofty ideals in relation to the rules of 
conduct which should govern engineers in their dealings with each other 
and with the community in general. 

Editors. 



541 



THE HUMAN SIDE OF THE ENGINEERING PROFESSION. 

(an outline.) 

By 

Professor Vladimir Karapetoff. 

Fundamental Thought: 

Professional usefulness and personal satisfaction depend on the 
right, conception of life and on the degree in which this conception of 
life is manifested in daily activity. 

PART L— WORK AND CONDUCT. 

There are three essential requisites for an efficient and successful 
engineer : 

A. Sound professional knowledge; 

B. Knowledge of business forms and of human relations ; 

C. Good and strong character. 

A. Professional Knowledge. A man who knows only "how" to 
do certain things, but does not know "why" they are done so, usually 
remains in subordinate positions. Get into the habit of analyzing; 
also, have your knowledge systematized. 

In order not to get "rusty," you ought to do some study, or at 
least some reading outside of your daily routine work. This outside work 
may be classified, in an ascending scale of difficulty, as follows : 

1. Keep notes on your regular work, with sketches, samples of 
calculations, etc. On separate notes keep matters of doubt to straighten 
them out at a future opportunity. 

2. Read regularly at least one periodical relating to your specialty, 
and keep some kind of a general index on at least one subject in which 
you are particularly interested. 

3. Be sure about the fudamental laws, facts, and assumptions 
on which your branch of engineering is based. If you are but recently 
from college, you can go over your old books and notes; otherwise 
read a good modern text book. 

4. Gradually get familiar with more advanced books treating of 
the various branches of your profession ; go from time to time to the 
public library and see if there is anything new in your specialty. 

5. Select some one branch of engineering, if possible, somewhat 
different from that in which you are regularly engaged and devote some 
time to it. Know more than the next fellow does; it will pay you. 

543 



544 HUMAN SIDE OF ENGINEERING PROFESSION. 

6. Do not miss any chance to make an original investigation; this 
will develop your thinking, increase your self-confidence, and raise your 
standing in the profession. 

7. Inventing is the highest form of engineering activity; there is 
no reason why you should not bring some improvement into the work 
in which you are engaged. Concentrate your mind on oije thing, work 
patiently and persistently, and you will be sure to achieve something 
that will be new and useful. 

B. Knowledge of Business Forms and of Men, You naturall)) 
expect some day to occupy a responsible position in your profession. 
This is impossible without a sound knowledge of established business 
forms and of human relations in general. Here again there are several 
stages of study and observation. Take up as many of them as your am- 
bition, time, and ability will allow. 

1. Observe the characters of men you are working with; in par- 
ticular, the influence of their previous experience and education, of their 
age and temperament, of their views on general life questions, etc. 

2. Observe things that make them efficient and happy, or that are 
impediments in their work; things that they would like to have and the 
main things that they object to. 

3. Observe critically your superiors and their ways of acting to- 
wards their chiefs and subordinates. Do this without malice, but rather 
with a sincere desire to find out the best way of conducting the work, 
when you shall be called to perform their duties. Make for yourself 
a clear mental picture of an ideal man in a certain position, and try to 
follow this ideal in your own business life. 

4. Observe and read about general business systems adopted in 
large modern commercial and industrial enterprises; in particular, 

(a) Subdivision of the duties of various officers, and their correla- 
tion; 

(b) Correspondence, accounting, orders, receipts, etc. ; 

(c) Causes of loss, waste, inefficiency, etc., and possible remedies. 
Alerely knowing the facts is not sufficient: you must see clearly the 

necessity for a certain organization. Only then will you find a right 
place in it for yourself and efficiently discharge your duties. 

5. Do not get "rusty" on general life questions ; read books on 
history, economics, philosophy, etc., with the view of finding the under- 
lying facts and motives in human relations. Do not adhere too readily 
to a traditional school ; work out your principles for yourself, and be 
willing to change them when new evidence is laid before you. A man 
in a responsible position must be a well educated man ; he meets a great 
many men, and ha=^ to face "'^-w 5;ituations. Therefore he must be well 



KARAPETOFF. ' 545 

informed on things in general, and ought to be able to judge about them. 

C. Training of the Character. Engineering and business knowl- 
edge are the necessary conditions for usefulness ("success" and useful- 
ness are not always the same), but the proper development of the 
character is the third necessary condition. 

What is the use of having a profound knowledge of engineering, if 
you have not the necessary perseverance to achieve results ; or to have a 
knowledge of business forms and relations, if your temper is such that 
nobody cares to be associated with you in business? 

Practice daily the qualities of the character that you- find essential 
for a good citizen and a good business man. 

1. Work patiently on any problem until a result is achieved. If 
it should be impossible to get satisfactory results, at least make clear 
to yourself the nature of the hindrances. 

2. Be honest in all things ; do not be afraid to confess your mis- 
takes or your ignorance. Train your character by doing your work over 
cheerfully. 

3. Keep down your selfish personality and ambition. Do not let 
them interfere with your business. The highest goal of personality and 
ambition is to have your part of the work done in the most ideal way. 

4. Be generous, polite, and considerate to others; there are no cir- 
cumstances where you would be justified in breaking this rule. Remain 
dignified even under unjust reproof. 

5. Work with the understanding that your activity of to-day shapes 
your future. You need not trust to chance; your opportunity zvill 
come when you are ready for it. 



PART IL— UNDERLYING MOTIVES. 
(a theory of life.) 

Some men are happy and efficient in their work without having any 
clearly defined conceptions of life and its purpose. In a great majority 
of cases, however, a lack of a workable theory of life brings with it a 
decrease in possible efficiency and in personal satisfaction. It is of im- 
portance, therefore, to know 

A. What are the principal limitations and wrong beliefs that are 
hampering engineers in their work. 

B. How these limitations can be removed by working out a 
theory of life that gives a general meaning to man's activity. 

C. How an engineer's work is shaped, when his underlying mo- 
tives are illumined by such a theory of life. 

A. Usual Limitations that prevent an engineer from being fully 
efficient and happy in his work. 



546 HUMAN SIDE OF ENGINEERING PROFESSION. 

1. Belief that he is underpaid; abnormal striving after money. 

2. Belief that his efforts are not appreciated by his employer; also that 

there is no chance for promotion. 

3. Lack of knowledge, theoretical or practical ; lack of general educa- 
tion; a deficient knowledge of business forms and human relations. 
This is often accompanied by a belief that he has no time for study ; 
in cases where a man has not exercised his mind for a long time, 
he has also to contend with his own mental apathy. 

4. Deficiencies in character, such as weakness, roughness, egotism, nar- 

rowness, pedantry, absent-mindedness, laziness, etc. 

5. Lack of enthusiasm due to the absence of a guiding and unifying 
purpose in life. This is particularly noticeable in very young men 
who are just beginning to form their own conceptions of life, and 
in older men who already see the end of their usefulness and cherish 
no more illusions. 

B. A Theory of Life. Each man must work out for himself a 
practicable theory of life; this will make his acts and words, thoughts 
and feelings, harmonious and consistent. The experience of humanity 
past and present is the material to work on; his reason is called upon 
to interpret this, and his conscience is the court of final appeal. 

The following is an example of such a theory of life: (*) 

1. The Universe, including man, is governed by an infinite intelli- 
gence, which is manifested in man as his conscious life. There is no 
meaning in a man's life if it be detached from other men's lives. In 
proportion as he becomes conscious of this one, infinite life, common to 
all men, his own life becomes reasonable and harmonious, and the fear 
of poverty, sickness, old age, and death gradually disappears. 

2. The highest purpose of life is to work for the realization of the 
above ideal conditions of life on earth. We do this either by actually 
removing certain hindrances and fetters (practical work), or by making 
this great work clearer to others (literary, educational work, preaching, 
etc.). 

3. Once this attitude is understood, the real compensation for the 
work consists, not in money and notoriety, but in the state of conscious- 
ness reached. This is manifested in particular: 

(*) It may seem presumptious on the part of the writer, who is not 
a philosopher' by trade, to formulate a "theory of life"; this he gives, 
however, simply in order to illustrate what a practical doctrine of life (not a 
"canned" religion) may be. For the author personally this doctrine is the 
truth he believes in and according to which he tries to shape his life; for 
others it may serve merely as an example. He hopes that by criticizing his 
metaphysics readers may make their own conceptions on the subject clearer to 
themselves, and in this way be indirectly benefited even by a theory pre- 
sumably wrong. 



KARAPETOFF. 547 

(a) In a clear and definite program of life, and a ready an- 
swer for all difficulties (doing your best). 

(b) 111 a state of harmony and good fellowship with all men, 
through the understanding of that life which is common 
to all. 

(c) In a freedom from fear, anger, jealousy, apathy, and 
other limitations caused by the assumption that life is an 
accidental chain of phenomena and circumstances. 

C. Work Illuminated by Higher Ideals. Once he has obtained a 
workable life-theory, all of the limitations enumerated above that prevent 
an engineer from being efficient and satisfied in his work can be removed 
by actually applying this theory to his daily work. 

1. The belief that he is underpaid or not appreciated enough loses 
its power; the man works no more for a company or a corporation. He 
works for his conscience's sake, and finds his true compensation in the 
results of his work. 

2. He is full of desire to do as much as he can, and not as little as 
he is allowed to. For this reason he wants to know much and to have 
his knowledge in a practical form, ready for use. He is active and 
studious all the time, and the expression "mental lethargy" is incompre- 
hensible to him. 

4. He frees himself from possible shortcomings in his character by 
keeping the ideal of perfection continually before his mind's eye. He 
no longer finds difficulty in handling men and in treating his co-workers 
and chiefs aright ; he- has a sincere sympathy for them, tries to help 
them, and to make their work more pleasant and efficient. 

5. He is full of enthusiasm, for he is aware of the infinite import- 
ance of his life and work. His work is infinite as is Life itself; and 
each problem solved brings with it a higher and more important problem, 
brings more truth and light into his consciousness. 



Conclusion — {Credo). 

1. Make yourself ready for a broader and higher field of activity; 
then your opportunity will surely come. 

2. The true purpose and value of engineering activity lie in provid- 
ing better and easier ways for satisfying ordinary human needs. This 
provides more leisure and opens new possibilities for a higher spiritual 
and intellectual development of humanity. 

3. The engineer's personal satisfaction consists in knowing this 
high purpose of his vocation, and in giving his service at a maxmium 
efficiency. The other compensation is a result and not the purpose. 

FINIS. 



INDEX 



Page 

Ability 80 

Ability, Administrative 445 

Ability, Business 445 

Ability, Demand for 445 

Ability, Executive 445 

Ability of instructors 77 

Ability to get results 473 

Abstract papers 363 

Abuse of formulas 520 

Academic degrees for engineers.... 389 

Academic tendencies 301 

Accounting 92, 114, 185 

Accounts 334, 365 

Accounts, Settling 540 

Accuracy. .. .28, 29, 46, 311, 384, 385, 386 
427, 446, 455 

Acknowledging mistakes 367 

Acquaintance 367, 420 

Acquirement 307 

Acquisition 211 

Activities, College 21 

Activities, Outside 15 

Activities, Social 45 

Activities (Student), Importance of 138 
Activity, Purpose of engineering. . . . 547 
Actual worth of college educa- 
tion 531, 532 

Adaptability 274 

Address 399 

Administration .. 193, 194, 346, 347, 447 
Administration, Defects due to.... 249 

Administrative ability 445 

Administrators, Engineers as 384 

Administrators, Rewards of 348 

Advancement 311, 426 

Advertising 441 

Advice 357, 420, 541 

Advice, Resenting 84 

Advice to freshmen 5, 7 

Advice to students ZZ 

Aesthetics 275, 276, 387 

Affairs 376 

Age of the engineer 295 

Agreeability 370 

Aiding contractors 369 

Aim in life 26 

Air 19 

Alacrity 200 

Alcoholic beverages 235 



Page 

Alertness 473 

Allied industries 192 

Allied subjects 86 

Almighty dollar 368, 456 

Ambiguity 64 

Ambition 166, 203, 316, 353, 545 

American Institute of Consulting 

Engineers 282 

American Society of Civil Engin- 
eers 365 

Amusements . . 436 

Analysis (Self) 306, 406 

Anger 547 

Animal spirits 39 

Antiquated books 93 

Apathy 547 

Application 311, 384, 385 

Application of principles 47 

Application of theory to practice.. 457 

Application, Practical 241 

Applied mechanics 262 

Applied sciences 257, 258 

Appreciation 546 

Apprenticeship 84, 361, 423 

Apprenticeship courses 274 

Arbitrator, Engineer as 369 

Architecture 465 

Arrangement, Logical 51 

Art 158, 351, 352 

Artistic possibilities 275 

Artistic taste 137 

Assimilation 304, 307 

Assimilation of information 212 

Assistance, Giving 367 

Assistance, Requesting '. . . 367 

Assistance to students 246 

Astronomy 264 

Athletics 235 

Athletic sports 39 

Authorship 433 

Awarding contracts 370 



B 



Babcock, Maltie D 201 

Bad construction 78 

Bad English 65 

Bad grammar 56, 62 

Bad specifications 64 

Baker, Dr. Ira 141, 143. Z72>, 375 



549 



550 



INDEX, 



Page 

Baker, Sir Benjamin 211, 213 

Balance 473 

Banking 92 

Bates, Onward 149, 150, 15 1 

Bearing 399 

Beauty 388 

Benefits of civilization 341 

Benjamin, Chas. H 437, 438, 439 

Bessemer, Sir Henry 168 

Biographies, Reading of 91 

Biography 33,351 

Biologist, Functions of 259 

Biology 264 

Bluntness 433 

Bookkeeping . . . 114 

Books, Antiquated 93 

Books, Catalogues of 88 

Books, Criticisms of 93 

Books, Expense of 93 

Books, Ideal 102, 103 

Books, Kinds of 101, 102 

Books, Marketing of 103 

Books, New editions of 104 

Books on English 66, 67 

Books, Padding of 103 

Books, Publishing 103 

Books, Purchasing of ....85, 87, 88, 442 

Books, Quality of 101, 102 

Books, Reading 543 

Books, Reviews of 93, 103, 104 

Books, Selection of 103 

Books, Selling of 87 

Books, Supplementary 85 

Books, Value of 94 

Books, Worthless 102, 442 

Books, Writing of 363, 364, 491 

Booze ZZ7 

Botanist, Functions of 259 

Botany 265 

Brains 238,415 

Breadth... 47, 155, 156, 199, 200, 338, 458 

Breadth of view 45, 226 

Breeding 61, 62 

Brevity 306 

Bridge companies 425 

Bridge design 465 

Brilliancy . . 311 

Broad education 332 

Broadening 224 

Broadening oneself 33 

Broadness.. 77, 155, 156, 166, 200, 458, 547 

Bureau of Corporations 298 

Bureau of Mines 297 

Burr, Wm. H 189, 191 

Business 463 

Business ability 445 

Business correspondence 58, 62 

Business, Engineers in 223 

Business instruction 184, 185 

Business, Knowledge of 544 i 



Pag-e 

Business man, Engineer as a 32, 33 

Business methods 365 

Business studies 1 14 

Business systems 544 

Business training Ill, 113, 114 



Canals 466 

Candor 166 

Cant ; 59 

Capacity 445 

Capital and labor 186 

Capitalization 456 

Card index 20, 441 

Care 47 

Career, Professional 79 

Carhart, Henry S 207, 208, 209 

Cashing up 539 

Catalogues . . 88 

Cataloguing 414 

Cauistry : 387 

Cessation of study of theory 77 

Chances in construction 261 

Changes in drawings 127 

Character 18, 199, 378 

Character, Defects of 166 

Characteristics of engineers 222 

Character, Training of the 545 

Cheating 18, 19, 77 

Checking 366, 427, 456 

Cheer fulness..._ 306, 323, 328 

Chemist, Functions of 259 

Chemistry 78, 263 

Chemistry, Importance of 47 

Chivalry 20, 21 

Choice of work 361 

Cities, Concentration in 381, 382 

Citizenship...... 20, 32, 45, 158, 225, 291 

293, 295, 298, 3Zd>, 351, 407 

City engineering 425 

City, Students from the 13 

Civic positions 425 

Civil Engineer defined 471 

Civil engineering education 453 

Civil engineering. Definition of.... 255 

Civil engineering. Future of 270 

Civil engineering. Limitations of... 256 

Civil engineering. Scope of 2 

Civilization 352 

Civilization, Benefits of 341 

Civil service rules 417 

Clannishness 33 

Classical training 313 

Classmates 401, 402 

Class officers 21 

Clearness 217, 333, 363, 385 



INDEX. 



551 



Pag-e 

Clearness of thought 304 

Clergy 422 

Cleverness 311 

Coaching 240 

Code of ethics 286 

College discipline 183 

College education 7, 505 

College education, Actual worth 

of 531, 532 

College, Purpose of 529 

Collegiate education, Preliminary.. 73 

Commencement 311 

Commercial law 185 

Commercialism 113, 114, 332 

Commercialism in college 186, 187 

Committees (special) 269 

•Common sense . 473 

Compensation.. 79, 199, 281, 282, 286, 360 

. 424, 546 

Compensation, Teachers' 215 

Competency 304 

Complaints 400, 452 

Complete living 351 

Complexity 303 

Composition 57 

Concentration . . ..19, 303, 304, 311, 326 

Concentration in cities 381, 382 

Concert-pitch 440 

Conciseness ^ ..306, 335, 363 

Conclusions, Quickness in 348 

Conditions before and after gradua- 
tion contrasted 84 

Conditions of life 324 

Conference 278 

Congestion of population 447 

Congestion of traffic 447 

Congresses 266 

Conservation 445 

Consideration 328, 477 

Consistency 328 

Constant, Frank H 219, 221 

Constructing formulas 520 

Construction, Bad 78 

Construction, Chances in 261 

Constructive imagination 181 

Consulting engineers, Requirements 

for 71 

Contemplation 303 

Content 40 

Contentiousness 306 

Continuing study after graduation.. 73 

75, 375, 428 

Contracts ...63, 64, 92, 364, 464 

Contracts, Awarding 370 

Contracts, Law of 115 

Contractors, Aiding 369 

Contractors, Oppressing 369 

Conveniences 294 

Conventionalities 328 

Cooley, M. E 403, 404. 405 



fP&ge 

Co-ordination in teaching 248, 249 

Corporations 171, 194 

Corporate power 171 

Corporations, Bureau of 298 

Corporations, Public service 297 

Correctness 311, 455 

Correspondence 58, 62 

Correspondence schools 505 

Cost 456 

Cost — estimates 185 

Cost, Knowledge of 170 

Counter-checking 366,456 

Courage 81, 164, 166, 234, 328 

Courses, Importance of 146 

Courses, Unprofitable 246 

Courtesy 20, 21, 377 

Court of last appeal 285 

Credit 298 

Credit due engineers 341, 342 

Credit to engineers 293, 294 

Crippled squad 12 

Crises of life 41 

Critical faculty 514 

Criticism 377 

Criticism of Engineering education. 231 

Critics, Carping 283 

Croes, Dr. J. James R 1 

Crookedness 409 

Cultural education 29, 34 

Cultural knowledge 27 

Cultural studies 275 

Cultural training 144 

Culture.. 52, 95, 179, 180, 181, 200, 226 
227, 311, 32S 440 

Cultured education 26 

Culture (defined) 136 

Culture, Lack of 73 

Culture studies 178, 386 



Damon, George A 497, 499 

Dams 465 

Dangers 360 

Daring 212, 213 

Dashkoff, Princess 489 

Dean, Function of 11 

Debate 463 

Debts, Paying 539 

Decision 336 

Decisions, Legal 365 

Deeds 495 

Deeds and men 477, 478, 479 

Defects 242 

Defects due to administration.... 249 

Defects due to parents 241 

Defects in instruction 241, 242 



552 



INDEX. 



, Page 

Defects in students 238 

Defects of character 166 

Deficiencies 546 

Deficiences in engineers' knowledge. 33 
Deficiencies in young engineers.... 454 

Definitions of engineering 1, 445 

Degeneration 303 

Degrees 435, 462 

Demand for ability 445 

Demand for highly trained engineers 446 

Depreciation 114, 186 

Derivation of formulas 516,517 

Descriptive literature 107 

Designing 462 

Designing, Economy in 435 

Designing, Importance of 47 

Destructiveness 445 

Development . .^ 45 

Development, Mental 143 

Development of Engineering 469 

Development of engineering educa- 
tion 232 

Development, Urban 382 

Devotion 172, 213 

Diary 366, 432 

Dictating 185 

Dictation 463 

Diction 58, 78, 306 

Diction, Elegance of 363 

Diction, Faults of 59 

Difficulties 213, 315, 397, 420 

Difficulties, Post-graduate 83 

Diffusion 326 

Dignity 393, 545 

Dilemmas 305 

Diligence 304, 315 

Diploma 399 

Diplomacy 399 

Directing 322 

Direction 277, 278, 336 

Directness of purpose . . 304 

Director 461 

Directors, Engineers as 223 

Disappointments 315, 401 

Discernment 261, 327 

Discipline 240 

Discipline in college 183 

Discipline, Physical 234 

Discipline (self) 250 

Discomforts 360 

Discontent 306 

Discouragement 3, 4, 367 

Discoveries 441 

Discrimination 156 

Dishonesty 30, 200, 236 

Dishonor 40 

Disorder 19 

Distinction 426 

Distinctions 435 

Diversion 385 



Page 

Divisions of engineering 215 

Doctors 422 

Dollar, Almighty 368, 456 

Drafting 360, 424, 425, 427, 456, 457 

Draper, Andrew S 247, 249 

Drawings 126, 127 

Drawings, Changes in 127 

Drawings, Contents of 457 

Drawings, Deficiencies in 128 

Drill 16 

Drink 235 

Drinking 17, 201, 2>Z7 

Drudgery 42R 

Drunkenness 39, 342 

DuBois, A. J. 475, 477 

Duties of engineers,. 195 

Duty 171, 378 

Duty of teacher 529 



E 



Earnestness of purpose 366,426 

Eating 16 

Economics. . . .170, 217, 266, 456, 464, 544 

Economics (defined) 258 

Economists 447 

Economy 333 

Economy in designing 435 

Economv, Political 462 

Eddystone 480, 490, 491 

Education 135, 265 

Education, Broad . . 332 

Education, College 7 

Education, Cultured 26 

Education, Definition of 25 

Education, Elements of 143 

Education, Engineering 448 

Education, Evolution in 525 

Education, Extent of 94, 95 

Education, General 147 

Education, Ideal 321 

Education, Liberal 144, 301, 302 

Education, Mental 236 

Education, Moral 234, 235 

Education, Necessity for 72' 

Education, Objects of 45,242,273 

Education, Practical 146, 439 

Education, Preliminary collegiate.. 7Z 

Education, Specialization in 389 

Education, Technical 175 

Education, (technical) Improve- 
ment in 267 

Education, True 526 

Education, Utilitarian 26 

Educational Methods, Vitilization of 534 

Effectiveness 303, 312, 316, 325 

Effective work 243; 



INDEX. 



553 



Page 

Efficiency 237 

Egypt 210, 211 

Electrical business 497, 499 

Electrical Engineering 466 

Electrical engineering. Limitations 

of 256 

Electrical engineering, Scope of.... 3 
Electrical Engineers, Training of 

271, 273 

Electrical experts 499 

Electricity 163 

Elegance of diction 58, 363 

Elements of effective education. 523, 525 

Elements of true instruction 526 

Eliot, Dr. Chas. W 37, 38, 39 

Emergencies 385 

Emergency work 169 

Emotional side of university life.. 136 

Emotions 137 

Empirical formulas 513, 519 

Endowment 467 

Endurance 7 

Energy 72, 200, 503 

Energy, Sources of 445 

Engineer, Age of^ the 295 

Engineei as a citizen 32 

Engineer as arbitrator. 369 

Engineer as peacemaker; 342 

Engineer, Definition of.. 167 

Engineer, Evolution of 260 

Engineer, Executive 195, 196 

Engineer, Function of 260 

Engineer in light literature. .422, 423 

Engineer, Profession of 1 

Engineer, Work of 168 

Engineering activity, Purpose of.. 547 

Engineering as a profession 26, 257 

Engineering, Definitions of.l, 168, 445 
Engineering, Development of... 469 
Engineering, Differentiation of.... 106 

Engineering, Divisions of 215 

Engineering education . . ..43, 45, 448 
Engineering education, Criticism 

of. 231 

Engineering education, Develop- 
ment of 232 

Engineering education. Extent of 

. . . 94, 95 

Engineering education. Necessity 

f or . . . 72 

Engineering education. Progress in 452 
Engineering education. Privilege of 8 

Engineering ethics 281, 369 

Engineering, Field of 95, 96, 169, 194 

Engineering, History of... 463, 471, 472 

Engineering literature 267, 287, 461 

Engineering literature, Extent of.. 100 

Engineering News 108 

Engineering periodicals 47, 200 



Page 
Engineering periodicals, Subscrib- 
ing for 90 

Engineering, Practical 302 

Engineering profession. .21, 158, 191, 493 

494 
Engineering profession. Age of... 281 
Engineering profession. Grandeur of 3 
Engineering profession. Importance 

of 381 

Engineering profession. Limitations 

of 27 

Engineering profession, Respect for 

the 281 

Engineering profession. Status of 

...279, 281 

Engineering science, Limitations of 259 

Engineering, Science of 191 

Engineering, Scope of 1 

Engineering societies 47, 200 

Engineering, Specialization in.. 469, 472 

473 

Engineering, Teaching of 358 

Engineering training, Function of. 192 

Engineering work, Nobility of 221 

Engineers as directors 223 

Engineers, Characteristics of 222 

Engineers, Credit due ....341,342 

Engineers, Duties of 195 

Engineers in business 223 

Engineers, Number of 193 

Engineers, Protection of 281 

Engineers, Qualifications of 

_ 195, 209, 210 

Engineers' Society 21 

Engineers, Work of 281 

England, Technical education in.. 423 
English, 149, 152, 184. 185, 216, 217, 376 

'429, 454, 455, 473 

English, Bad 53 

English, Books on 66, 67 

English, Faults in 56 

English, Lnportance of 115 

English, Methods of acquiring good 55 

English, Study of 78 

English, Teaching of 115 

English, Value of 49. 51 

Enjoyment 39 

Entering requirements 459 

Enterprise 164, 503 

Enthusiasm 546, 547 

Entrance requirements 55 

Environment 307 

Epitomizing 366 

Epochs, Ethnical 161, 164 

Errors . . . 46, 401 

Errors in writing 58 

Errors of Speech 61 

Essentials and non-essentials. 304, 393 

Essentials for success 95 

Estimates 185 



554 



INDEX. 



Pag-e 

Estimates of cost 456 

Ethics 269, 281, 282, 283, 369, 434 

Ethics, Code of 286 

Ethnical epochs 161, 164 

Evasion 529 

Evohition in education 525 

Evolution of the engineer. 260 

Evolution, Organic 307 

Executive ability 445, 503 

Executive engineer 195, 196 

Executive positions for engineers. 193 

Exercise 16 

Exercise, Bodily 158 

Exercise, Physical 45, 440 

jixenion (self) 250 

Existence, Struggle for ....324,401 

Expedients . '. 214 

Experience 31, 224, 425 

Experience, Personal 206 

Experience, Varied 206,361 

Experimenting 433 

Experiments 30 

Expert testimony 335 

Experts, Electrical 499 

Expression 305, 327 

Expression, Facility of 386 

Extra scholastic work 85 

Extra studies 144, 145 

Extra study ., 440 



Facetiousness 66 

Facility of expression 386 

Factors of ignorance 520 

Facts . 441 

Faculty 11, 12, 332 

Failure 80, 354, 367, 401, 406 

Failure, Responsibility for. 530 

Fairness 336 

Faithfulness 315 

Falsehood 433 

Fame 71 

Farm, Students from the 13 

Farms 382 

Far-sightedness 473 

Falsifying records 30 

False pride 81 

Fault-finding 400 

Faults in English 56 

Faults of diction 59 

Fear 547 

Fidelity 315 

Field books 123 

Field notes . . 123, 124 

Field of engineering 169, 194 

Field of the engineer 95, 96 



Pag-e 

Field notes. Brevity in 124 

Field notes, Thoroughness of 124 

Fighters 341 

Fighting 314 

Filing 20 

Final records 128, 129 

Finance 92 

Finesse 13 

Finishing one's work 407, 408 

Fink, Albert 446 

Firmness 336, 441 

Firth of Forth bridge 211 

Five-year courses 7Z, 276, 453 

Fluency 363 

Food 16 

Foreign engineers 286 

Foreign languages 28, 78, 184 

Foresight 327 

Forgetting 81 

Formulas, Abuse of 520 

Formulas, Constructing 520 

Formulas defined 515 

Formulas, Derivation of 516, 517 

Formulas, Empirical 519 

Formulas, Limitations of 521 

Formulas, Rational 518 

Formulas, Their Uses and Abuses 

513, 514, 515 

Fossilization 362 

Four-year courses too short 277 

France, Engineering in 423 

Fraternities 20 

French 429 

Freshmen, Advice to 5, 7 

Friends 20 

Friendships 20, 45 

Frost, Harwood 97, 99 

Function of engineering training. . 192 

Fundamental principles 218, 274 

Fundamental truths 532 

Fundamentals 216 

Future of civil engineering 270 



Gambling 17 

General education 147 

General studies 331 

General technical knowledge 459 

Generalization 515 

Generosity 40, 2,77, 545 

Genius 167 

Geodesy *. 465 

Geography , . 264 

Geological science 269 

Geologist, Function of 259 

Geology 263, 465 



INDEX. 



555 



Page 

German 429 

Gestures (to supplement language) 60 

Gluttony 39 

Goal for attainment 285, 440 

Golden rule 377, 369 

Goldsborough, Winder El well. .203, 204 

205 

Good fellowship 547 

Goodness 200 

Good usage 60 

Government by law 532 

Government positions 425 

Government publications 99 

Grace 311 

Graduate courses 445 

Graduates, Positions for 233 

Graduate study . 437, 439, 441 

Graduation, Meaning of..^. 100 

Graduation, Necessity for 72, 423 

Grammar 56, 57 

Grammar, Bad 56, 62 

Grandeur of the engineering profes- 
sion 3 

Graphics 464 

Greatness 167 



H 



Hammond, John Hays 210 

Handbooks 517 

Handicaps 397 

Hand writing . ^ 120 

Happiness . . 40 

Harbors 466 

Hardships 423 

Hard work 39, 85 

Harmony 547 

Harrington, John Lyle...49, 51, 69, 71 

Hay ford, John F 339, 340, 341 

Health 14, 39, 71 

Hereditary nobility 294 

High school . . 9 

High standard 46 

Higher education 449, 451 

Higher mathematics 262, 263 

Highway engineering 466 

Hints to students 141, 143 

History 33, 217, 351, 544 

History of engineering 463, 471, 472 

Holidays 370 

Honesty.. 18, 81, 197, 199, 214, 215, 222 

354, 446, 494, 545 

Honor 40, 377, 3S7 

Howard, E. E 117, 118, 119 

How to study 243 

Howe, Chas. Sumner 411, 413 

Hudson River tunnel 213 



Page 

Human field 397 

Human interests 32 

Human life 533 

Human nature 336 

Humanistic knowledge 33 

Humanities 226 

Hume, Alfred 513, 514, 515 

Humphreys, Dr. A. C.lll, 113, 173, 175 
Huxley's definition of liberal educa- 
tion 35 



deals . . 426, 547 

deas 305 

dleness 421 

dling 432 

gnorance, Factors of 520 

magination 166, 351, 352 

magination. Constructive 181 

mpatience 236 

mportance of chemistry 47 

mportance of correct language 61 

mportance of courses 146 

mportance of designing 47 

mportance of engineering profes- 
sion 381 

mportance of mathematics 47 

mportance of physics 47 

mportance of technical writing 63 

mportance of vocations 176 

mpression 322 

mprovement 307 

mprovement in morals 342 

mprovement in technical education 267 

mprovement of waterways 446 

naccuracy , 385 

ncentives 205 

ncomes of Electrical Engineers 

501, 502, 504 

ncompetence 25 

ncreasing requirements in educa- 
tion 73 

ncreasing working time 460 

ndexes 108, 366, 441 

ndices 108, 366, 441 

ndexing 93 

ndividuality 135, 32b 

ndividual students, Study of 447 

ndustrialism 209 

ndustries allied to engineering 192 

ndustry 46, 80, 384 

nfluence 337 

nformation 440 

nformation. Acquisition of 143 

nformation. Assimilation of 212 

nitiative 72, 445, 503, 527 



556 



INDEX. 



Page 
Inspiration 228 

Institution of Civil Engineers 423 

Instruction, Defects in 241, 242 

Instruction (True), Elements of ... . 526 

Instruction writing 63 

Instructors, Ability of 77 

Integrity, 72,315,377,384, 387, 433,473 

Intellectual development 302 

Intellectual labor 40 

Intelligence 71 

Interdependence of engineering 

branches 256, 257 

Interdependence of specialties 458 

Interests, Variety of 370 

Intoxicants 235 

Intrepidity ., 213 

Intuitions 305 

Invective 66 

Inventory 544 

Invention 34, 334 

Inventors 34 

Investigation 441, 544 

Investigation, Original 461 



Jackson, Dugald C 349, 350, 351 

Jealousies 367 

Jealousv 547 

Johnson, Prof. J. B 23, 25 

Joining societies 365 

Jordan, David Starr 303 

Journals 414 

Judgment 40, 155, 311, 336, 338 

Judgment, Commercial 333 

Judgment, Passing 377 

Judiciousness 156, 157 

Jurisprudence 265 

Justice 18, 19, 387 



K 



Karapetoff, Vladimir. .. 133, 134, 135, 537 

539, 541, 543 

Kenedy, Dr. Julian 329, 330, 331 

Kerr, Walter C. ..299, 300, 301, 309, 311 

319 321 

Killing time 432 

Kindliness 18, 20 

Kirby, Edmund B 395, 397 

Knighthood 228 

Knowledge 313 

Knowledge and Action 309, 311 

Knowledge, Cultural 27 



Page 

Knowledge, Essential 95 

Knowledge, Extent of 95 

Knowledge, General technical 459 

Knowledge, Humanistic 33 

Knowledge, Love of 226 

Knowledge of business 544 

Knowledge of an engineer 27 

Knowledge, Organized 344 

Knowledge, Professional 543 

Knowledge, Purpose of 303 

Knowledge, Special 440 



Labor and' capital 186 

Labor, Intellectual 40 

Labor, Management of 296 

Labor organizations . . . , 296 

Laboratory courses 278 

Laboratory, Testing 461 

Lack of culture 73 

Language .....152, 153, 346,399 

Language, Definition of... 51 

Language, Importance of 61 

Language, Ordinary 54 

Language, Poverty of 58 

Language, Technique of 78 

Language, Value of 51, 52 

Languages 15 

Languages, Foreign 28, 78, 184, 429 

Languages, Modern 184 

Latin-American republics 286 

Law 81, 463 

Law and engineering compared... 170 

Law, Commercial 185 

Law of Contracts 115, 185 

Laws 92 

Law-suits, Causes of 64 

Lawyers 82, 83, 422 

Laziness 200 

T pOQpt-C 413 

Leadership.V.V.V.Vl70,'i71," 323, '447, 448 
Learned profession, Definition of.. 26 

Learning 327 

Lecture system 242, 243, 254 

Lectures 243 

Lectures, Reading of 91 

Legal decisions 365 

Legal profession . . 422 

Legibility 120, 121 

Legislation 286 

Leisure 351 

Leisure time 85 

Lethargy, Mental 547 

Letters of application 125 

Letter writing, 124, 125,130, 149, 151, 399 



INDEX. 



557 



Page 

Letter writing, Art of 62 

Lewis, Nelson Peter 379, 381 

Liberal education 144, 301, 302, 313 

Liberal education. Definition of 35 

Liberal education for engineers 191 

Liberality in work 377 

Libraries, Individual 69, 71 

Libraries, Private 442 

Libraries, Public 92 

Library, Beginning of 86 

Library, Nucleus of 87 

Library reading 441 

Librar}', Reference 91 

Licentiousness 39 

Life, Conditions of 324 

Life, Crises of 41 

Life, Human 533 

Life, Theory of. 546 

Light . . 19 

Lighthouse, Story of 475 

Light literature 429 

Light literature, Engineer in. .422, 423 

Limitations 545 

Limitations of formulas 521 

Limitations of technical courses 

. _ 75, 76 

Limitations of the engineering pro- 
fession 27 

Limits of technical school training. 83 
Literature.... 158, 287, 351, 352, 363, 390 

Literature, Descriptive 107 

Literature, Engineering 267, 461 

Literature (Engineering) Extent of 

_ 100, 101 

Literature, General 33 

Literature, Light 429 

Literature, Technical 364, 452 

Literature, Theoretical 107 

Literature, Valueless 107 

Litigation, Cause of 333 

Living, Complete 351 

Locke 242, 244 

Logic 243, 244, 245, 251 

Logical thinking 242 

Loose sheet records 122 

Love of knowledge 226 

Loyalty 390, 409 

Luck 482 



M 



Macaulay 293 

Magazine English 53, 54 

Magazines 90 

Magazines, Technical 414 

Malaria 269 

Man 477 



Page 

Management 92 

Management of labor 296 

Management of men 365 

Manufacturing 194 

Manufacturing companies 425 

Marriage 435 

Marrying 368 

Mastery 445 

Mathematical papers 363 

Mathematics. . . .14, 15, 165, 217, 262, 430 

431, 462 

Mathematics, Higher 262, 263 

Mathematics, Importance of 47 

Matriculation requirements 55 

Matrimony 368 

McClellan, William 391, 393 

McGill Universitv 453 

McKibben, Frank P 43, 45 

Measurements of precision....... 465 

Mechanical engineering 466 

Mechanical engineering, Limitations 

of . . 256 

Mechanical engineering, Scope of.. 3 

Mechanics, Applied 262 

Medical profession 422 

Melville, Admiral Geo. W..291, 292, 293 

Memorizing 274 

Memory 28 

Men, Management of 365 

Men, Study of 223, 544 

Mental development 28, 143 

Mental education 236 

Mental equipment. Character of... 531 

Mental lethargy 547 

Mental training 39, 46, 234 

Metallurgy 465 

Military profession 422 

Military training 239 

Mill, John Stuart 440 

Mineralogy 264, 465 

Mines, Bureau of 297 

Mining . . 398 

Mining engineering 402 

Mining engineering. Limitations of. 256 

Mining enginjeering. Scope of 3 

Mischief 20 

Mistakes 46, 366, 367, 390 

Mixing 45, 371 

Modern languages 184 

Modesty 441 

Molitor and Beard's Manual 124 

Money 406, 456 

Money, (spending) 240 

Money values 365 

Monopolies 296 

Moore, John Trotwood 410 

Moral development 234, 250 

Moral education 235 

Morality 201 

Morals 170 



558 



INDEX. 



Page 

Morals, Improvement in 342 

Morison, Geo. Shattuck 161 

Mothers-in-law 332 

Motives 316, 378, 545 

Moving on 316 

Municipal public works 195 

Municipal service 417 

Music 351, 352 



N 



Narrowness. . . .81, 153, 154, 155, 156, 222 

441 

Narrowness of engineering educa- 
tion 32 

National problems 446 

Natural sciences .' 165 

Navy yard organization 297 

Neatness 455 

Neatness, Value of 131 

Necessity 240, 241 

Neglecting to study 80 

Nerve 315 

Newspapers . . 363 

Newspaper English 53 

Niggardliness 369 

Nobility of engineering 228 

Nobility of Engineering work 221 

Noble, Alfred 19 

Nobility, Hereditary 294 

Notation, Uniformity in 520 

Note-books 432 

Note-book habit 366 

Note-book records 122 

Notes 366, 543 

Number of engineers 193 



Object 378 

Object, Ultimate 370 

Objects of education 45, 242 

Obligations 8, 10 

Observation, Quickness of 335 

Opinions 393 

Opportunists 387 

Opportunities 302, 317, 400, 482 

Opportunities for engineers. .31, 34, 381 
Opportunities in electrical business 

497, 499, 504 

Opportunity 240, 545 

Oppressing contractors 369 

Oppression 341 

Optimism 306 



Page 

Oratory 57, 463 

Order 20 

Ordinary language 54 

Organic evolution 307 

Organized knowledge 344 

Organization 81, 346 

Organization of university 10 

Original investigation 461 

Originality 211, 212 

Orthography, Errors in 56 

Orthoepy, Errors in 56 

Out-of-door life 359 

Outlook, Broad 166 

Outside activities 15 

Outside work 248, 543 

Overtime 427 



Padding 103, 364 

Panama Canal 269, 270 

Papers, Abstract 363 

Papers, Topics for. ...... . .287, 288, 289 

Papers, Writing of 363 

Parents, Defects due to 241 

Parent's responsibility 527 

Parks 383 

Parsimony 369 

Passing judgment 377 

Patenting 34 

Patience 354, 377 

Patriotism . . 226 

Paying debts 471 

Peacemaker, Engineer as 342 

Pedagogics 246, 247 

Pedantry 59 

Perception . . 314 

Perfection 315 

Periodical literature . . 54 

Periodicals 200, 363 

Periodicals, Engineering 47 

Periodicals, Preservation of 108 

Periodicals, Reading 543 

Periods in engineering career 343 

Persistence 7 

Personal experience 206 

Personality of teachers 154 

Petrology 263 

Philosophy 544 

Physical condition 16 

Physical discipline 234 

Physical exercise 45, 440 

Physical training 234, 235, 250 

Physicist, Functions of 259 

Physics 165, 217, 263 

Physics, Importance of 47 

Physiology 235, 250 



INDEX. 



559 



Page 
Piers 383 

Planning studies 82 

Plans ■. 127 

Plans, Deficiencies in 128 

Pleasures, Social 370 

Pluck 7 

Plunder 338 

Poesy 66 

Point of view 299, 301 

Poise 14 

Polemics 387 

Policy 433 

Polish 14 

Politeness 545 

Political economy . ...265, 289, 447, 462 

Political economy (defined) 258 

Political matters. 376 

Political positions . . 425 

Political science 352 

Politics 158, 225, 417, 446 

Population, Congestion of 447 

Position 71 

Positions 358 

Positions for engineers 31 

Positions, Executive 193 

Positions for graduates 233 

Positions in Government 425 

Positions occupied by engineers.... 178 

Positions, Subordinate 426 

Possibilities ZZJ 

Post-graduate courses 445 

Post-graduate difficulties 83 

Post-graduate school 449 

Post-graduate school of engineering 

267, 268, 460 

Post-graduate study 

83, 184, 224, 430, 447 

Poverty of language 58, 59 

Power 314, 325 

Power, Manufacture of 161, 162, 163 

Power transmission 466 

Practical application 241 

Practical bearing 221 

Practical education 146, 439 

Practical engineer 149, 151 

Practical engineering 302 

Practical experience 506 

Practice in technical courses 76 

Practice versus theory 182 

Pranks 20 

Precedent 433 

Precision 385 

Precision, Measurements of 465 

Preliminary collegiate education... 7Z 

Preparedness 482 

Prescribed course 144 

Prescribed work 85 

Preservation of periodicals 108, 105 

President 461 

Prestige 8, 20 



Page 

Press, Technical 97, 99 

Pride, False 81 

Principles 328, 544 

Principles, Application of 47 

Principles, Fundamental 218, 274 

Principles, Study of 326 

Prismoidal formula 518 

Privilege of engineering education 

. 8, 9 

Privileges, Special 9 

Probity 19 

Problems, National 446 

Problems of transportation 447 

Professional career 79 

Professional knowledge .; 543 

Professional spirit . .^ 171 

Profession, Engineering as a 26 

Profession, Learned 26 

Profession of Engineer. 1, 21, 381, 389 
422, 423, 493, 494 

Profession of engineering 158, 191 

Profundity 311 

Progress 35, 316 

Progress in engineering education 452 

Progress, World 467 

Promises 434 

Promptness 342 

Protection of engineers 281, 282 

Prout, Col. H. G 159, 160, 161 

Provincialism 20 

Public libraries. Using 92 

Public service 276 

Public service corporations 297 

Public work 295, 417 

Public work. Municipal 195 

Punctuation 62, 78 

Purchasing 332, 333 

Purchasing books 85, 87, 442 

Pure sciences 257, 258 

Pure science. Field of 258, 259 

Pure science. Function of 259 

Purpose 473, 546 

Purpose of college 529 

Purpose, Directness of 304,366 

Purpose, Earnestness of... 426 

Purpose of engineering activity 547 

Purpose of knowledge 303 

Purpose of language 57 

Purpose, Singleness of 303 



Qualifications 284, 285 

Qualifications of an engineer. . .209, 210 

Qualifications of engineers 195 

Qualifications for success 71 

Qualificative knowledge 29 



560 



INDEX. 



Page 

Qualities in engineers 211 

Quaternions 263 

Quickness 342 

Quickness in conclusions 348 

Quickness of observation 335 

Quiet 19 

Quizzing 242 



R 



Railroad companies 425 

Railroading 359, 464 

Railways 381 

Rankine . . . .'. 181, 182 

Rational formulas 513, 518 

Rationalizing 305 

Readiness 200 

Reading 58, 78, 414, 428 

Reading books 543 

Reading, Library 441 

Reading, Non-technical 89 

Reading periodicals 543 

Reading, Planning of 90 

Reading, Repetition in 94 

Reading, Technical 362 

Reading (Technical), Extent of 

106, 107 

Reading technical journals 86 

Reading technical literature 87 

Reasoning 243 

Recommendations 367, 368 

Recognition 393 

Recording 366 

Records 117, 119 

Records of completed constructions 

128, 129 

Records bv drawing 126 

Records, Final 128, 12S 

Records, General explanations of 123 

Records on loose sheets 122 

Records in note-books 122 

Records, Neatness in 131 

Records, Objects of 120 

Records, Permanency of 123 

Records, Truthfulness of 123 

Records, Varied list of 130 

Recreation 158, 383, 385, 436 

Reference books 85 

Reference library 91 

Reforms 452 

Regular course 144 

Relaxation 46,436 

Reliability 157, 337, 427 

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 472 

Repetition in reading 94 

Reports 40, 63, 64, 124, 125, 334 

Repudiation 409, 434 

Reputation through writing 364 



Page 

Requesting assistance 367 

Requirements 322 

Requirements for consulting engi- 
neers 71 

Requirements for entrance 55, 459 

Requisites for success 543 

Research 260, 287, 437, 439 

Resenting advice 84 

Resistance 315, 325 

Resources 337, 445 

Respect 41 

Respect for the engineering profes- 
sion 281 

Responsibilities 8, 35, 393, 528 

Responsibility 323 

Responsibility, Concentration of. 249, 250 

Responsibility for failure 530 

Responsibility of parents 527 

ResponsibiHtv, Shirking of 306 

Rest 439 

Restlessness 316 

Restrictions 417 

Results 46, 345 

Results, Ability to get 473 

Retaining teachers 248 

Reviewing text books 89, 543 

Reviews of books 93, 103, 104 

Revised editions 104, 105 

Rewards 337 

Rewards for engineers 199 

Rhetoric 15. 57, 58 

Riggs, M. J 197, 199 

River improvements 466 

Rolling stone 203, 206, 316 

Roman engineering works 212 

Roughing it 360 

Roundness 313 

Routine work 503 

Rudyerd, John 487 



Salary _ 79, 224, 358 

Salary, Increasing of 368 

Salesmen * . . . 503 

Sanitary engineering 466 

Satisfaction 46, 199, 547 

Satisfactions 37, 39 

Saving 434 

Saving money 409 

Scattering 326 

Scholarships 453 

Scholastic work, True value of.... 78 

Science 177, 179 

Science of engineering 191 

Science, Fascination of 397 

Sciences, Division of 257 



INDEX. 



561 



Pag-e 

Sciences, Natural 165 

Scientists . . 177 

Scope of civil engineering 2 

Scope of electrical engineering... 3 

Scope of engineering 1 

Scope of mechanical engineering 3 

Scope of mining engineering 3 

Scott, Arthur C 271, 272,273 

Secondary stresses 464 

Selecting books 103, 104 

Self-analysis 306, 405 

Self-control 13. 239 

Self-culture 238, 239 

Self-discipline 250 

Self-education . . 72 

Self-exertion 250 

Selfishness ' 302, 545 

Self-reliance.... 47, 357, 384, 386 

Self-respect 407 

Self-training 47 

Sense 399 

Service 26, 342 

Service, Municipal . . 417 

Settling accounts 540 

Sewerage 264 

Shenehon, Francis C 5, 7 

Shirking responsibility 306 

Shop cost 185 

Shop courses 506, 507 

Shop-talk 32 

Shortcomings 547 

Simplicity 58, 303 

Singleness of purpose 303 

Six-year courses 55, 192, 276 

Skinning 18 

Slang 59 

Sleep 16 

Slighting studies 469 

Smeaton, John 487, 488, 489 

Smuth, Hon. Willard A. . .443, 444, 445 

Smoking 18, 201 

Snow, Chas. H 469, 470, 471 

Social activities 45 

Social evil 17 

Social pleasures 62, 370 

Social sciences 257, 352 

Societies 441 

Societies, Engineering 47, 200 

Societies, Joining 365 

Societies, Technical 91, 432 

Society 226 

Society for the Promotion of En- 
gineering Education 452 

Socrates, Teachings of 242, 243 

Soldiering 81 

Soldiers and engineers 169 

Sound, Study of 21/ 

Sources of energy 445 

Spanish 425 

Speaking 463 



Page 

Special privileges 9 

Specialization.. 47, 77, 94, 106, 155, 178 

. . . ....183, 215 

Specialization in education . . ..200, 389 
Specialization in engineering. . .469, 472 

473 

Specializing 82, 361, 426 

Specializing (non) 306 

Special knowledge 440 

Special services 286 

Specialties in engineering 255 

Specialties, Interdependence of.... 458 

Specification for success 

508, 509, 510, 511 

Specifications 63, 64, 364, 435, 464 

Specifications, Bad 64 

Speech 62 

Speech, Errors of 61 

Spelling 56, 149, 151 

Spending-money 240 

Spt)rts 436 

Sports, Athletic 39 

Standard, High 46 

Standards 314 

Statistics 186 

Statistics, Instruction in 114 

Status of the engineering profes- 
sion 279, 281 

Stephenson, Robert 228, 488 

Story of a Light House 475 

Straightness 410 

Strength 14, 325 

Strenuous course . . 7 

Strikes 296, 324 

Struggle for existence 401 

Struggles 478 

Student's part • 507 

Studies, Extent of 94, 95 

Studies, Extra 144, 145 

Studies, General 331 

Studies, List of 94, 95 

Studies, Slighting of 469 

Studv after graduation 69, 71,375 

Study, Continued 428, 429 

Study, Continuing 73, 75 

Study, Extra 440 

Study, Graduate 441 

Study, How to 243 

Study Men 223, 339, 341, 544 

Study, Neglect to 80 

Studv of engineering 189, 191 

Study of English 78 

Studv of individual students 

. .' 343, 415, 447 

Studv of theorv, Cessation of 77 

Study, Post-graduate 224, 430, 447 

Studying to pass 82 

Style 57, 217, 363, 429 

Subordinate positions 426 

Subordinates 15 



562 



INDEX, 



Page 

Subscribing for periodicals 90 

Subways 217 

Success.. 71, 157, 224, 225, 235, 240, 354 

387, 399, 405, 413, 419, 450, 473 

Success (defined) 222 

Success, Essentials for 95 • 

Success, Qualifications for 71 

Success, Requisites for 543 

Summer work 251 

Superficiality 47 

Supplementary books 85 

Sureness 441 

Surveying 359, 424, 516 

Survival of the fittest 312 

Swain, Dr. Geo. F..229, 230, 231, 449 

Sympathy 2,Zd> 

System 19, 20, 304, 326,440 

System in records 121, 122 

System in writing 121 

Systematizing 370, 435 

Systemization 82, 455 

Systems, Business 544 



Tables 516 

Tact 336, 399, 433, 445 

Tactfulness 384, 386 

Talkers 393 

Talking 151, 152 

Talking shop 32 

Taste, Artistic 137 

Taylor, F. W 231 

Teacher's duty 529 

Teachers, Incompetent 248 

Teachers, Personality of 154 

Teachers, Requirements for 245 

Teachers, Retaining 248 

Teachers, Scarcity of 245 

Teachers, Unproductive 247 

Teaching .135, 433 

Teaching, Coordination in 248, 249 

Teaching engineering 358,439 

Team work 399 

Technical courses, Limitations of 75, 76 

Technical education 175 

Technical education. Improvement 

in 267 

Technical education, Necessity of. . 157 

Technical journals 47 

Technical journals, Reading 86 

Technical library, Beginning of . . 86 

Technical literature 364, 428, 452 

Technical literature, Reading 87 

Technical magazines 414 

Technical paper writing 62 

Technical periodicals, English of... 54 
Technical press 97, 99 



Page 

Technical press, Duty of 100 

Technical reading 362 

Technical school training. Limits 

of 83 

Technical societies 91, 432 

Technical subjects 145 

Technical training 261 

Technical writing. Importance of.. 63 

Technique of language 78 

Temptations 187 

Terseness 217, 363 

Testimony, Expert 335 

Testing 466 

Testing apparatus 287 

Testing laboratory 461 

Text-book system 242 

Text books 347 

Text-books, Reviewing ..89, 543 

Text-books, Selling of old 87 

Theories 441 

Theory and practice 30, 457 

Theory, Cessation of study of 77 

Theory, Importance of 89 

Theory of life 546 

Theory versus practice 182 

Thinking 354 

Thinking, Logical 242 

Thomson, W. H 238 

Thorough-bi ids 12, 14 

Thoroughness 17, 211, 212, 354 

Thought, Clearness of 304 

Time, Leisure 89 

Time-servers 368, 414 

Time-serving 427 

Time wasting 89, 385 

Tobacco 18, 235 

Traffic, Congestion of , . 447 

Trade publications 99 

Trades 15 

Trade school 301 

Trades schools 275' 

Training 76, 384 

Training of electrical engineers 271, 273 

Training of the character 545 

Training, Mental 39, 46, 234 

Training, Military 239 

Training, Physical 234, 235, 250 

Training, Technical 261 

Translating 461 

Transmission of power 466 

Transportation problems 447 

Trash. Technical 428 

Travel 377 

Tredgold 1 

Tredgold's definition of engineer- 
ing 168 

Tribunal . .^ 40 

True education 526 

True instruction, Elements of 526 

Trusts 296 



INDEX. 



563 



Page 

Truth 171, 172, 226, 387, 422, 494 

Truth-seeking 30 

Trying 316 

Tunneling 465 



u 



Ultimate object 370 

Underpay . . 546 

Unfitness in students 239 

Uniformity in notation 520 

University education 157 

University of Nebraska 449 

University organization 10 

Unpreparedness . 74, 75 

Unprofitable courses 246 

Unselfishness 315 

Unsociability 221 

Urban development 382 

Urbanity 14 

Usage 60 

Usage (of language) 52, 53 

Useful knowledge 28, 29 

Utilitarian education 26 

Utility 260 

Utilization . . 307 



Vacations 251, 370, 385 

Value of English 49, 51 

Value of positions 31 

Values, Money 365 

Vandals 20 

Van Ornum, John Lane... 523, 524, 525 

Varied experience 361 

Variety of interests 370 

Vary, Power to 307 

Versatility 15, 306 

Vigor 66 

Virtue 200 

Visiting works and constructions.. 462 

Vitilization of educational methods 534 

Vocabulary 306 

Vocations, Importance of 176 

Vocation of the engineer 177 

Volitional side of university life.. 137 



Page 



w 



Waddell, J. A. L., 253, 255, 279, 281, 355 
357, 417, 419 449 451 

Wanted, Being . 323 

Wasting time 363, 385 

Water-powers 296 

Water-supply 264. 466 

Waterways, Improvement of 446 

Watt 488 

Wharves 383 

Will . . , 238, 239 

Will, Exercise of 138 

Williams, Gardner 210 

Winstanley 481, 482, 485, 493, 496 

Words 151 

Work 315 

Work, Definition of 203, 205 

Work, Effective 243 

Work for engineers 199 

Work, Etxra scholastic 85 

Work, Hard 39, 311 

Working time. Increasing 460 

Work, Liberality in 377 

Work of the engineer 168, 281 

Work, Prescribed 85 

World progress 467 

Worth 378 

Worth (actual) of college educa- 
tion 531, 532 

Worthless books ^ 442 

Writing 120, 185, 433 

Writing (books and papers) ..363, 364 

Writing, Errors in 58 

Writing, Neatness in 121 

Writing of books 491 

Writing of instructions 63 

Writing of letters 130 

Writing papers 441 

Writing, Reputation from 364 

Writing, System in 121 



Yellow fever 269 

Young engineers, Deficiencies in... 454 



JUN 24 1912 



W 83 




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